{"id":118801,"date":"2025-09-04T17:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T17:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/118801\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T17:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T17:54:09","slug":"poet-rebekah-burgess-explores-love-and-loss-in-latest-book-hope-floats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/118801\/","title":{"rendered":"Poet Rebekah Burgess explores love and loss in latest book \u2018Hope Floats\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThings then seemed to just naturally flow around that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book is dedicated to that \u201ckey figure\u201d in her life and her young daughter. <\/p>\n

Multiple poems in Hope Floats touch on Burgess\u2019 time living on the station and memories with her grandfather.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the country, you have a lot of freedom to just notice things, I guess, that had a huge influence on me,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Hope Floats also includes photography as a \u201cstorytelling tool\u201d.<\/p>\n

Accompanying the poems about her grandfather, Burgess includes a map of the station, hand-drawn by her uncle, and a photo of the original sign her grandfather kept on his workshop. <\/p>\n

Another significant image in the book accompanies poems about Burgess\u2019 experience of the 2020 floods in Plimmerton<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But not all of the photos have literal connections to the writing.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the photos just represent a vague feeling,\u201d Burgess said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a subconscious process, there\u2019s just a feeling you get when something works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope Floats has three titled sections: \u201cThe opposite of love is fear\u201d, \u201cPeace\u201d and \u201cMotherhood\u201d.<\/p>\n

Other themes in the book include freedom, family, farming and the ever-changing seasons of life.<\/p>\n

Eight years since the publication of her first book, Chasing Rainbows, Burgess has developed her craft in a handful of ways.<\/p>\n

As a self-published author, it is not just in creativity but also in practical techniques, such as marketing and formatting, where her skills have increased.<\/p>\n

Just as she rejects elements of urbanised life, Burgess rejects \u201cliterary fads\u201d and prefers to focus on the basics. <\/p>\n

One of her main inspirations is legendary New Zealand poet Sam Hunt<\/a> who was known to perform his poetry in local bars. <\/p>\n

\u201cI love that he took poetry to ordinary people by ordinary means,\u201d Burgess said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerforming poetry is so great and it gives the poem a life of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Performance is likely to be an important part of her fourth book, which is in the planning stage.<\/p>\n

She aims to connect music with her poetry and is considering recording an album of the poems in the book and their musical accompaniments. <\/p>\n

Burgess said she had already created and performed much of the work she will include in the fourth book but, as a self-published author, time and funding were critical.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s already sort of out there, it\u2019s just not in a book yet,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Burgess will perform poetry in the Winterlude series at Mana Little Theatre in Plimmerton, where she now lives, in late June. <\/p>\n

Hope Floats will be released on June 6 with a launch party at The Undercurrent in Wellington and will be for sale from June via Rebekah Burgess\u2019 website rebekahburgessphotography.zenfoliosite.com <\/p>\n

Olivia Reid is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThings then seemed to just naturally flow around that.\u201d The book is dedicated to that \u201ckey figure\u201d in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[617,64,63,746,457,84041,134,36012,43247,84042,26796,4717,10320,6010,17357,84044,46357,56036,84039,39946,84043,84040,27643,51390,84045],"class_list":["post-118801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-and","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-book","tag-books","tag-burgess","tag-entertainment","tag-explores","tag-fear","tag-floats","tag-hope","tag-in","tag-latest","tag-loss","tag-love","tag-manawatraised","tag-motherhood","tag-peace","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-rangitkei","tag-rebekah","tag-release","tag-tackling","tag-themes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}