About

Orphaned Islands so named to reflect the author’s country of residence (New Zealand), three remote islands abandoned by Antarctica and Australia after their tectonic separation and (Un)poetry because it is a series of collections of poems which, although written in poetic form, are actually very short, short stories.

So what’s Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry about? It’s about short, short stories, written as poetry, that produce a slight feeling of disbelief and the question: “did it really happen like that?” It’s about capturing chatter that might otherwise be lost to the non- listening ear, lost perhaps in waiting …. waiting for someone to get out and let us have a turn with the conversational bat.

Each collection is comprised of 50 individual pieces hanging from a single theme. The writing is not predicated on the beauty of language but empathy – the empathy of the slightly extraordinary things that happen to ordinary people…. shutter click experiences that vanished as they came into being, leaving a wind gust vacuum, a shake of the head and a sighed…… “I know that feeling, that person, that situation … it happened to me.”

If you would like to read  writing that is a little quirky and a bit different – not quite poetry – not quite prose and  think, “I got that,” or wish something would happen or just want an eyebite or even a thoughtbite to dip into while waiting for the bus, train, dentist – those occasions when there isn’t time or energy for a novel, when the news seems tedious or depressing then Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry might hit the spot.