New Zealand's leading poet of this generation, Bill Manhire, talks to John Campbell in this highlight of the 2020 Word Christchurch Writers Spring Festival.

Bill Manhire is not only one of New Zealand's leading poets, he's mentored hundreds of writers through the International Institute of Modern Letters, where he established the MA in Creative Writing. For a long time, it was known simply as 'Bill Manhire's writing course'.

In this highlight from the 2020 Word Christchurch Writers Spring Festival, Manhire speaks to one of his former students, the broadcaster John Campbell, about his life and career.

A number of poems are read during this session, all featuring the verbal precision and delicate balance between regret and comic banality which mark out Manhire's writing.

Listen to Bill Manhire in conversation John Campbell

Manhire marks the extinction of the New Zealand native bird huia in this poem about loss from his latest collection Wow (2020).

Huia

I was the first of birds to sing

I sang to signal rain

the one I loved was singing

and singing once again

My wings were made of sunlight

my tail was made of frost

my song was now a warning

and now a song of love

I sang upon a postage stamp

I sang upon your coins

but money courted beauty

you could not see the joins

Where are you when you vanish?

Where are you when you're found?

I'm made of greed and anguish

a feather on the ground

I lived among you once

and now I can't be found

I'm made of things that vanish

a feather on the ground

Manhire offers a fresh interpretation of the biblical story of Noah in this poem, which imagines its title character as a musician less interested in the survival of the ark's cargo than the state of the instruments he has brought with him.

Noah

I abandoned the bad band

and joined the good band: I thought

that we would flood the world with music.

The first rains came and soon the trees

were somehow growing out of water -

we travelled through the forests

by canoe.

Eventually we built our boat,

the famous one with windows and the deck

of many roofs. Things that once were mountains

sailed on by, and then the whole of the world

had gone, and everything was sky. And yes

I brought instruments aboard - too late for some,

it's true. As for the animals, I never really knew.

Someone else did that. In the end we ate a few…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details