No matter how often you visit the Capital, one of life’s great truths is that Wellington is a gorge-fest. An enchantingly compact city crammed with culture
05:00, May 26 2021
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Author Jackson Nieuwland with their I Am A Human Being book of poetry which won the MitoQ Best First Book AWard for Poetry.
Jackson Nieuwland is a genderqueer writer from Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Their first book,
I Am A Human Being, was published by Compound Press in 2020 and recently won the MitoQ Best First Book Award for Poetry. They run Food Court Books with Carolyn DeCarlo. Each poem in I Am A Human Being begins with the phrase “I am a” and continues from the perspective of a different object, animal, or occupation, they say. “This array of voices accumulates into an expression of queer identity and experience. The poems shift in tone and style, at one moment humorous, the next surreal, the next deeply personal.”