His performance style, highly familiar to many New Zealanders, is a vital mix of sizzling delivery and moving body, feet stamping and hand counting out the beat, much like a rock star. No wonder Hunt opened for Leonard Cohen a couple of years ago.
What becomes a beloved trademark is the way he accentuates the word at the end of the line, giving it a lyrical lift and fall so that it chimes out with a melodic flourish.
Knucklebones is a comprehensive collection of Hunt's poems - all the ones he has performed for more than 50 years. This is a bringing together of roughly 15 books of poetry. Hunt has helped shape New Zealand poetry over many years. He has often said "a poem is an active composition and you should have the chance of hearing it speak to you". Hunt has taken his poems all over the country with that familiar swagger and appeal.
"Brother Lynch", "Maintrunk country road song", "Rainbows, and a promise of snow", "Four bow-wow poems", "My father scything", "Hey Minstrel" and "Lines for a New Year" are all here, alongside his iconic "A purple balloon":
And every Christmas Day, our
drunk old Santa Claus, he came.
With a pohutukawa
flower stuck like a clotted bloom
of blood on his coat lapel:
pockets full: always his green
bottle with its latch-on cap;
singing with us kids till all
we could do was yell and clap
The last Christmas he came he gave me a purple balloon.
Hunt remains one of the most deserving success stories of New Zealand culture. He has always had that ability to walk the high wire between humour and heartbreak with unerring skill. No net. If you like your poetry entertaining and perceptive, bruised and eloquent, Knucklebones is an excellent choice.
This big book brings out Hunt's top-shelf, top-drawer poems. It is solid and action-packed, even if it is missing a certain newness, as well as notes and an index of titles and first lines. Knucklebones is still a brilliant way of looking at the best of Hunt's work.
This little book tours Europe, explores relationships and where people find themselves.
"train to Munich":
on the train to Munich
the woman opposite asks
if since i speak English
i would like to know
that during the war
she worked in Belsen
sorting clothes from Jews and so on
something about me
irritates her
i shift
to another compartment
Charman may only dream of selling 5000 copies of poetry, like Hunt can, but her previous collection cold snack (AUP, 2007) won the 2008 New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. Her poems engage with others and possess a restless spirit. More often than not, brief, unadorned, conversational, political thoughts are sprinkled across the page.
Charman often marries wit and politics through her poems. Feminist issues and linguistic playfulness are easy to spot. At the White Coast is clever, astute and shrewd, at the same time as being sensitive and honest. Charman has not lost her touch. This latest collection simply proves it.
Now there are cracks in the bathroom
it makes sense to welcome
strangers to an unstable world.
Behind the taps, an orange spider
treads water and out of this daring
occupies a new position.
One flick of my finger
and the spider would disappear.
Let it rest on the basin curve.
Hutchison lives in Christchurch. Her latest collection of poems The Happiness of Rain is full of funny, moving and messy moments. Hutchison has always looked at little things since her debut collection The Long Sleep Is Over (Steele Roberts) appeared in 1999.
The air on skin, playing with fern fronds, sleep, birds and neighbours take on a new significance. Hutchison keeps things low-key even when she is penning poems about Katherine Mansfield and John Clare. Her poems are clear and precise. It is tough to shake off The Happiness of Rain.
There is something very real about all of these books of poetry. A kind of confidence glows with unselfconscious charm. Dylan Thomas once said: "Poets have got to enjoy themselves sometimes, and the twisting and convolutions of words, the inventions and contrivances, are all part of the joy that is part of the painful, voluntary work". Really, Sam Hunt, Janet Charman and Jan Hutchison are simply having fun.
• Hamesh Wyatt reads and writes poetry.
