‘She can draw a ball-sack better than anyone alive’ – Hera Lindsay Bird on artist Hannah Salmon

Poet Hera Lindsay Bird celebrates the work of New Zealand artist Hannah Salmon, aka Daily Secretion, who creates portraits of angry ‘alpha men’. First published on 10 July, 2019. Like most teenage punishers who took art history in high school, I spent years resentfully analysing the composition of Colin McCahon paintings and various other New … Read more

The Friday Poem: COLORADO SPRINGS 1989 by Hera Lindsay Bird

A new poem by Hera Lindsay Bird. COLORADO SPRINGS 1989 After David Berman whenever I get lonely I go to department stores and wander around looking at all the t-shirts with made-up names and dates on them. some days I think it’s almost sweet this collective longing for an imaginary past if they weren’t so … Read more

‘She can draw a ball-sack better than anyone alive’: Hera Lindsay Bird on artist Hannah Salmon

‘Like Escher, if he was more into dicks than staircases.’ Poet Hera Lindsay Bird celebrates the work of New Zealand artist Hannah Salmon, aka Daily Secretion, who creates portraits of angry ‘alpha men’. Like most teenage punishers who took art history in high school, I spent years resentfully analysing the composition of Colin McCahon paintings … Read more

The Friday Poem: ‘I want to get high my whole life with you’ by Hera Lindsay Bird

New love poetry by Wellington writer Hera Lindsay Bird.   I want to get high my whole life with you   i feel it in my leather hotpant pockets i feel it in my anime wind blowing through an alpine tennis resort overcome with wildflowers i feel it in my ironic valley girl hairflip I feel it … Read more

Book of the Week: Hera Lindsay Bird interviews Tinderbox author Megan Dunn

Poet Hera Lindsay Bird talks to Megan Dunn, author of a brilliantly funny new memoir about working at a failed bookstore while experiencing a failed marriage and making a failed attempt to write a novel. I first met Megan Dunn the year after I had graduated from a writing programme and had to emerge back into reality … Read more

Summer Reissue: Hera Lindsay Bird interviews George Saunders

Hera Lindsay Bird talks with George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo, the stand-out novel of 2017. This story was first published on 8 May 2017. I first started reading George Saunders because someone told me to. I don’t always read what other people tell me to read, because there are only so many unhappy … Read more

The Friday Poem: ‘Bruce Willis You Are The Ghost’ by Hera Lindsay Bird

New verse inasmuch it’s previously unpublished, but really it’s old verse cos it was written ages ago, by Wellington writer Hera Lindsay Bird. Bruce Willis You Are The Ghost It’s not that your wife doesn’t love you. It’s because you died and now you are a ghost and she can’t hear you talking to her. That time … Read more

Auckland Writers Festival: Hera Lindsay Bird interviews George Saunders

The very best coverage of the Auckland Writers Festival – the most expansive, the most intelligent – is right here, as the Spinoff Review of Books devotes the entire week to encounters with guest writers. Today: Hera Lindsay Bird talks with George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo, the stand-out novel of 2017. Read more … Read more

‘Keats is Dead so Fuck Me From Behind’ by Hera Lindsay Bird

New verse by Wellington writer Hera Lindsay Bird.   Keats Is Dead So Fuck Me From Behind Keats is dead so fuck me from behind Slowly and with carnal purpose Some black midwinter afternoon While all the children are walking home from school Peel my stockings down with your teeth Coleridge is dead and Auden … Read more

The Friday Poem: ‘The Ex-Girlfriends Are Back From the Wilderness’ by Hera Lindsay Bird

The Ex-Girlfriends Are Back From the Wilderness The ex-girlfriends are back… emerging once again from the tree shadows… into the primordial burlesque of autumn with their low-cut… reminiscences… and soft, double ironies… trembling once again into their opulent… seasonal migration patterns a corsage of wilting apologies tethered to the bust… The ex-girlfriends are back…with their … Read more

The Friday Poem – ‘Hate’, by Hera Lindsay Bird

HATE   Some people are meant to be forgiven and others are meant to be hated forever….. ………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………. I don’t think it’s right to hate people It’s just that I don’t care To wake each day in a snakeskin negligee and light myself on fire with such ethical behaviours   Once………………I tried to give … Read more