Aup New Poets 5: Volume 5

Carolyn DeCarlo lives in Aro Valley in Wellington, New Zealand, with her partner and cats. She has a BA from Georgetown University and an MFA from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of four chapbooks, most recently Green Place (Enjoy Journal, 2015) and Bound: An Ode to Falling in Love (Compound Press, 2014), which she co-wrote with Jackson Nieuwland and won Best Literary Zine at the 2015 Auckland Zinefest. She is a founding member of the Wellington-based reading collective, Food Court. Her passions include film, art, tattoos and plants.Sophie van Waardenberg was born in London and grew up in Auckland. She has a BA in English and history from the University of Auckland, and will soon be studying towards her MFA at Syracuse University. Her work has been published in Starling, Mimicry, Best New Zealand Poems and The Spinoff. She spends a lot of time browsing socks on the internet.Rebecca Hawkes grew up on a high-country farm near Methven and now works, writes and paints in Wellington city. She holds an honours degree in media studies and an MA in creative non-fiction from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington. Her poetry has been published in Sport, Landfall, Starling, Turbine, Sweet Mammalian, RNZ and Mayhem. She can usually be found writing, painting or painstakingly catching insects to feed her pitcher plant.

‘The return of AUP New Poets is a welcome initiative at a moment when New Zealand poetry is bursting with so much fresh talent. Each poet in this trio has very much her own distinctive style, voice and angle of interest but all three sit well between the same covers: van Waardenberg’s youthful poems provide an airy interval between the more measured approach of DeCarlo and the glorious excess of Hawkes. AUP New Poets 5 shines the spotlight on three gifted new poets, showing us how they glitter and spin.’ – Chris Price