Sand and Sugarcane: Nafanua Purcell Kersel and Mikaela Nyman | Writers on Mondays

The poems in Biggs Family Prize in Poetry winner Nafanua Purcell Kersel's Black Sugarcane can sting and soothe, revealing a paradise despoiled by climate change and colonisation, and celebrating a people resilient in the face of it all.

Mikaela Nyman is from the autonomous, demilitarised Åland Islands in Finland. Her first poetry collection in English, Anatomy of Sand, follows on from her climate fiction novel Sado.

These two urgent contemporary voices join Tamara Tulitua in a conversation about rising seas, political and personal poetry, the local and global.

Writers on Mondays is presented by the International Institute of Modern Letters and Te Papa Tongarewa. The 2025 series will run from 12.15—1.15 pm each Monday from 7 July to 29 September at Te Papa Tongarewa and Circa Theatre, with two special evening sessions at Meow. Admission is free and all are welcome. The series is supported by the Letteri family.

The full programme can be viewed here: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/modernletters/about/events/writers-mondays.

Come celebrate Aotearoa writers with us at Writers on Mondays – we look forward to seeing you there.

You may also like the following events from Writers on Mondays:

• Next Monday, 7th July, 02:15 am, On The Road: Gina Butson and Michelle Rahurahu | Writers on Mondays in Wellington
• This month, 14th July, 02:15 am, Stories That Define Us: Michelle Duff and Saraid De Silva | Writers on Mondays in Wellington
• This month, 28th July, 02:15 am, Making & Mending: Cadence Chung, Gregory Kan, Jiaqiao Liu & Nina Mingya Powles | Writers on Mondays in Wellington

Also check out other Arts events in Wellington, Literary Art events in Wellington, Theatre events in Wellington.