A dispatch from the most Wellington of literary festivals, Verb.<\/p>\n
Joy doesn\u2019t come from soaring house values<\/p>\n
One way to make joy in tough times is to make art, and this weekend\u2019s revived Verb Festival presented a Wellington that doom columnists and politicians don\u2019t see, propelled by artists and people who understand that art is an essential part of our days.<\/p>\n
Sessions at the Hannah Playhouse were led by mostly local writers with only one visitor from overseas, Michelle de Kretser (spotted at the Lawrence & Gibson launch, props to visiting writers who go to local book launches).<\/p>\n
Brutalist architecture is hard on the quads<\/p>\n
I worked in the Hannah Playhouse (then Downstage Theatre) in the late 90s; in 2026 it still smells the same and the flow of people through its cold exposed concrete blocks is still awkward. In busy sessions you queue to climb the steep steps while people clutch the handrails to descend or cram themselves in the bar area confused about which queue is for book signings, and which for the next session. You can\u2019t help but see people you know. I have an affection for it, the way you do for a spiky, embarrassing aunt who blurts out family secrets at birthday lunches.<\/p>\n
Wellingtonians like to get metaphysical<\/p>\n
Friday night started with a celebration of Lawrence & Gibson\u2019s 21 years in publishing (no mean feat, especially when it\u2019s the authors who print, cut, bind, glue and distribute the books) and the launch of three new books by Brannavan Gnanalingam, Murdoch Stephens and Frances Pavletich.<\/p>\n
Gnanalingam\u2019s UXO is about the Sri Lankan Civil War as told by an Indian peacekeeper \u2014 a story of complicity, colonisation and grief, recurring themes through his nine novels. He\u2019s a legend in terms of getting the writing done, alongside his other work as a lawyer, publisher and dad. He\u2019s also the only person I\u2019ve heard use \u201csobriquet\u201d and \u201cmilquetoast\u201d in a launch speech and make it sound normal.<\/p>\n
Brannavan Gnanalingam and Murdoch Stephens (Photo: Kirsten McDougall)<\/p>\n
Pavletich (That Was Not My Intention) was overseas but sent a magnum of Moet \u2013 classy \u2013 which we all watched Stephens (P\u0101k\u0113ha Metaphysics) drink while he talked about how metaphysics is a useful philosophy for thinking about P\u0101k\u0113ha-ness. In other cities, spending a Friday night this way might be considered a form of punishment, but because it\u2019s Wellington, we were there for it.<\/p>\n
Flies are like poetry (see what I\u2019m doing there?)<\/p>\n
I ran into novelist Duncan Sarkies at the poetry reading Fever! where we discussed poetry and flies. Sarkies talked about the patterns flies make as they move about a room. \u201cFruit flies,\u201d he said, \u201care even more interesting.\u201d Pay more attention, I told myself.<\/p>\n
Poetry is the form of attention-paying and pattern; it too is drawn to death and making something out of it.<\/p>\n
The throughline for Fever! was \u201cpleasure and pain\u201d which somehow Helen Rickerby, Jackson McCarthy and Nafanua Purcell Kersel made funny. I liked Simon Sweetman\u2019s poems dedicated to the singer-songwriter Harry Nilssen (Nillssen Schmilssen being one of the great joke album titles of the 20th century). Alongside Hinemoana Baker \u2013 a queen of forcing knotty, crunchy sounds up against those with a sensual glide \u2013 and MC\u2019d by the effervescent Victor Roger, Fever! left me feeling like I\u2019d been pumped with legal peptides. No flies on this audience.<\/p>\n
Verb Festival audience has the dance party crossover age mix<\/p>\n
Alongside the well-heeled ladies clutching piles of books was the arty young, with their cool glasses and haircuts and activist badges. I\u2019m of the age where I\u2019ve gone back to late night dancing, and Verb had a similar mix of ages I see at DJ gigs \u2013 OG 90s ravers and bright youth.<\/p>\n
Even Dame Silvia Cartwright had impostor syndrome<\/p>\n
In Saturday morning\u2019s sold-out session, Anna Fifield fired through her questions with Dame Silvia Cartwright who gave clipped, professional answers about her memoir, That Woman. Our former governor general and head of the 1988 cervical cancer inquiry, among many other historical pieces of work, told us how she got her first job in the man\u2019s world of 1960s law because she had the best legs.<\/p>\n
Cartwright got funny and relaxed when Fifield asked her about her husband, who she said loved the life at government house and had a sweet routine taking lunch and coffee during their eight years in Cambodia while she presided over trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders. Black humour got her through the work\u2019s dark material. She said she was always doing jobs she wasn\u2019t qualified for yet \u2013 even the inquiry that made her a household name. Fake it till you make it, like Dame Silvia.<\/p>\n
Nick Bollinger is a master interviewer<\/p>\n
The packed house came for Jon Toogood, who fulfilled the brief of ageing rock star to talk (and sing) about his book Home Again \u2013 creative burnout and despair, finding love, the monotony of making school lunches \u2013 but it was Nick Bollinger\u2019s interview technique I was there for: full of historical context and musical knowledge, guiding us through a gracefully shaped conversation.<\/p>\n
Time is written all over a city and it isn\u2019t linear<\/p>\n
Multiple sessions delved into place, and time\u2019s spookiness, exploring each writers\u2019 (including the iconic Witi Ihimaera) ways of delving into place through layers of history \u2013 to bring t\u012bpuna and past stories alive in the present through the creative acts of writing and reading.<\/p>\n
Witi Ihimaera in session with Puawai Cairns (Photo: Kirsten McDougall)<\/p>\n
Poet Hana Buchanan reminded us that in te ao M\u0101ori, the future is also written in the past. One way to connect all these layers is to walk a place and learn its history, its griefs and violence, and the people who lived there \u2013 walking as an act of resistance and hope.<\/p>\n
Creative non-fiction writer Noelle McCarthy echoed this in her own event when she said, \u201cCork is a place in continual communion and out of received order with the present and past.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCarthy and Doireann Ni Ghriofa (beaming in from the Netherlands) reminded us that reading is a magical act. That to engage your imagination in a book can raise ghosts. \u201cSome art gets into the clay of you,\u201d said McCarthy. Some festivals too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dispatch from the most Wellington of literary festivals, Verb. Joy doesn\u2019t come from soaring house values One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69,302252],"class_list":["post-613968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-verb-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}