'New Zealand's Most Exciting Young Poet': Guardian Profiles Hera Lindsay Bird

Her recently published debut poetry collection has already flown off bookstore shelves, with reprints on the way, and yet the 28 year old New Zealander Hera Lindsay Bird is rather down to earth.

It’s a midwinter Monday night and Hera Lindsay Bird – New Zealand’s most exciting young poet – is tucked up in bed in pyjamas and a robe her boyfriend calls “too Laura Ashley for human consumption”.

Her first book of poetry – a provocative, raunchy bestseller – was published in July by Victoria University Press and a reprint has already been ordered.

The self-titled book has catapulted the 28-year-old from a respected but anonymous graduate writer to semi-cult status, and she is well aware that her life and work are now inextricably bound together. She’s also pretty OK with that.

Poems such as Keats Is Dead So Fuck Me From Behind, Monica (about Monica from friends) and Hate have exploded on to the New Zealand literary scene. Her Twitter followers have ballooned to thousands (including the singer Lorde) and she’s had “minor British celebrities” befriend her on Facebook. The New Zealand Listener magazine called her debut an “unabashedly flamboyant collection” and Sunday magazine said it was “fearless”.

Despite the explicit, autobiographical nature of her work, in person – over drinks at the Dunedin young writer’s festival – she has an easy, understated presence, even at times a little remote, which is interesting considering she has been frequently charged with over-sharing.

The risque, confessional nature of her poetry is hard to detect in the young woman clothed in a patterned dress and leather jacket, slowly sipping a flat white and looking forward to a quiet night in her hotel room watching TV.

Read more at the Guardian.