In 2017 I was at the IIML at Victoria University of Wellington, chasing a masters in creative writing. My goal was to create a manuscript around the idea that it's sometimes useful to think about things in terms of what they are not. One of the parts of the final manuscript was based on what it means to be a woman as seen through the lens of "not-man". During my research I stumbled across the phenomenon that was Émilie du Châtelet. Look her up - it's a great story.

This is one of my favourite poems to read aloud. It's playful and rich in sound. I had a lot of fun creating weird word combinations, such as 'walking our feet plodly'. When we lived in the Waikato, Alistair and I did a lot of walking in the beautiful Kaimai ranges - this poem celebrates those walks.

I started this poem when we were 'on sabbatical' in the Northern Territory of Australia. Generating a poem is very difficult for me - I don't just have an idea, write it down and then edit it into its final form. I usually need something to start with; a sentence or a sound, for example. Or a picture, etc. With 'One red shoe fallen' I can't remember its exact origins, but when I look at it now, I see the sound play and repetitions, and I imagine that's where it all started. That plus the fact that in that year I tried Hendrick's gin for the first time and my belief that all gins are the same was shattered! I know I had entertained the idea of starting a poem in the middle of a sentence for some time and, as I laboured with the poem, it naturally became circular, which also fits the content.

When I moved to Morrinsville in 2014, I felt quite dislocated. I was at home with Alistair but it wasn't my home or our home, it was his. The view across to Mt Te Aroha was spectacular but not intimate like our hills at home, and the plains were quite intimidating. Clearly I am a Northlander at heart.

Mothers are judged by society no matter what they do. This poem comes from my deep-seated grief and anger that it continues to be that way. Please. Just. Stop.

I wrote the first version of 'Immortal make' on a plane, returning from our time in Australia's Northern Territory. When I opened up my notebook to write, a skink ran out. I caught it in my hand, put it in an airsickness bag and handed it to the flight attendant with an explanation. She seemed a little confused. This has nothing to do with the poem. The poem is in a form very loosely based on the sestina - a poem with a repeating line endings. It is a response to a painting by Cathy Tuato'o Ross, which arrived in my email inbox with the filename 'e-chimera'. The poem's title derives from this - Homer described the chimera as 'a thing of immortal make, not human'.

Writing this poem for Pavlova Press's Kerikeri anthology 'Ngā Ripo Wai', was a very fiddly business. I set myself the constraint of using only words from the Kerikeri listings in one issue of the local property mag. The process involved patience, glasses and a pair of scissors ...

Like 'Immortal make', this poem was a response to a painting and was created for a side-by-side exhibition. The painting was quite surreal and involved what resembled an alchemist's lab - a rich source of ideas for a poet.

Written for the 2022 Kohukohu Library poetry competition, which required the inclusion of the word mist, 'Emergence' is an aubade - a 'dawn serenade'. Traditional aubades celebrate the morning while lamenting the departure of a lover, but mine is simply a celebration. Inspiration came from Maungapohatu and its resident rātā.

Written a long time ago, this is one I probably like more than it deserves. But that's OK - it was fun to write even though it is actually rather sad.

Another one from my MA year. It's probably one for which my classmates demanded more clarity, but I like reading 'difficult' poems myself - after all, the world is full of mystery. Does Buddha weep or reach? I'll leave that up to you ...

I read somewhere about the pearl divers and the conditions they worked under - it horrified and enthralled me so I went on a research binge. Writing this micro was an exercise in summarising!

In a happy coincidence, a writing prompt (choose one of these pictures and one of these sentences to create a story) met the Sword in the Stone and the Rubble Women. Such fun!

This poem began with the idea of a poem running time backwards, and the question around when one might wish for this to happen.

A micro that started as a poem which had started as another poem during my MA year. I was working with the idea of repeating homophones (two or more words that share the same pronunciation, but which have different spellings or meanings) to create a tapestry of sound and meaning. As is often the case with my writing, the theme got a bit dark.