New Poet Laureate on inspiration, responsibility and joy
Wednesday, 22 July 2026
Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu) has been named New Zealand’s Poet Laureate for 2025-2028, succeeding Chris Tse in one of the country’s highest literary honours. The acclaimed poet, teacher and scholar, who lives in Ōamaru, is celebrated for work that amplifies Māori and Pacific voices while exploring identity, history and belonging. Sullivan spoke to The Post after his inauguration in Wellington…
Hey Robert! The Poet Laureate is often seen as a voice for the nation. What do you think the role should be over the next three years?
It’s a community role. I’ve read on Anzac Day at Auckland Museum for their memorial poetry competition, spoken at Haeata Community College’s graduation ceremony in Christchurch, read to celebrate the esteemed artist Maureen Lander at the Len Lye Museum in Taranaki, and had fun with the poetry circle at Ōamaru Library. I’m running poetry workshops at Kāretu Marae in Northland, and Puketeraki Marae in Karitāne as they’re my parents’ marae. At Kāretu we’ve started up the Ngāti Manu Poetry Society. So the role for me is about putting a personal face on poetry in lots of different communities who enjoy writing and reading, and who love celebrating that.
The arts sector has been through a turbulent few years, with funding pressures and changing audiences. What role do poets and writers have at a time like this?
Poets were here at the beginning of language itself, and we’ll be there at the end. Even birds have poetry - just listen to them! Rilke made the rocks sing. Poetry makes it okay to be emotional and to voice our feelings. We’re able to bear emotional witness to huge events - the birth of a child, a marriage, a family death - they’re the large topics of poetry, and everything else stands in line after them. Repressive societies overseas often go after the poets, writers, artists and journalists for speaking their truth. In tough times we look to well hewn words, thoughts and deeds.
Is there a place where poems tend to begin for you?
I can be mid-sentence and a poem occurs to me (“My poetry is a fire/ if I close my mouth/ I will die”). I could be waking up or about to go to sleep and a poem turns up. I just have to make sure that I’m tuned into that, and not to the TV. Occasionally I’ll plan a longer poem which doesn’t depend on chance and more likely on research such as when I wrote Star Waka (wonderful research on celestial navigation and waka revitalisation).
AI is raising new questions about authorship, creativity and copyright. How do you see poetry fitting into that conversation?
Poetry is distilled emotion. I can’t see a computer convincingly achieving that. Has a computer felt the same shock as Emily Dickinson when she spoke about how the top of her head had been taken off by true poetry, and how her whole body was so cold that no fire could warm her because she had read a poem? I just couldn’t believe a computer would have the grit or muster the courage to be in that world. A poem makes an electrical forcefield that is love, according to Joy Harjo. A poem is made from bodily sensations. AI is more than just a legal rights matter. It isn’t just a tool, it’s also a threat. I’d much rather give legal personhood to Papatūānuku.
Finally, what’s something not many people know about you?
My first job was selling vacuum cleaners. I ended up driving the sales reps door to door which was a lot of fun. I kept studying at uni part-time though and that’s how I did the creative writing workshop led by Albert Wendt and Witi Ihimaera. I’m still in awe of them both. I’ve been very lucky.