Poetry can be perplexing… some say that’s the point. But writer, poet and critic Stephen Burt is here to help.

Writing is what Karyn Hay likes best. Her debut novel Emerald Budgies won Best First Book at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2000 and she’s just published a new novel, The March of the Foxgloves. Yet for a certain generation of Kiwis, Hay will always be the rock chick who presented Radio with Pictures in the 1980s.

A long-forgotten antiseptic, used in World War I could help make people more resistant to disease spread during a pandemic.

Professor Richard Beasley CNZM FRSNZ tells Kim Hill that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of asthma in the world, yet despite a huge research effort, we still don’t know why.

Macular degeneration is the major cause of blindness in people over 50 in New Zealand - but eye specialists say revolutionary new treatments and raising awareness of the problem will help to overcome it. Professor Alan Bird is a world expert on the retina, whose work has spanned four decades. He is a consultant at the Institute of Ophthalmology at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and is in Aotearoa this month as a guest of Macular Degeneration New Zealand.

Five years on from the Fleet street phone hacking scandal, new press restrictions in the UK have been labelled a 'threat to democracy and accuracy'. Kathryn Ryan discusses the relationship between the police and the press, with leading criminologist Dr Marianne Colbran and the important lessons to be learned.

Daisy Goodwin is an historian, journalist, editor and novelist, and has a long career in British television, devising shows including Bookworm, The Nation's Favourite Poems, Home Front and Grand Designs. Her drama series, Victoria, is based on her novel Victoria (Headline, ISBN 9780755396108), about the early life of a small, emotionally deprived teenager who woke up one morning to find herself Queen of England, the most powerful woman in the world.

Kim Hill talks to Andrew Sharp, Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Auckland, who has lived in London since 2006. His major new book is The World, the Flesh and the Devil: The Life and Opinions of Samuel Marsden in England and the Antipodes, 1765-1838 (AUP).

Auckland University's Professor Ian Reid was one of those behind ground-breaking studies that revealed vitamin supplements are largely ineffective when it comes to restoring bone density. Now he's warning of an upcoming "fracture tsunami" as New Zealand's population ages.

Research indicates about 15% of mothers suffer from this serious health issue, but it often go undetected and untreated, says investigative journalist Alison McCulloch. She's just published a large multimedia investigation into post-natal depression In collaboration with and scoop.co.nz.