Poems in the Waiting Room

Posted: Monday Jan 16, 2017

Poems in the Waiting Room (NZ) distributes 8000 free poetry cards every season to medical waiting rooms, rest homes, hospices and prisons throughout New Zealand. 

The three-fold brightly coloured cards usually contain eight poems, including one for children, and a haiku. Poets and publishers the world over (including Bloodaxe Books and Faber & Faber) have been very generous in loaning requested poems for each edition.

The PitWR trustees also enjoy working on community projects. In the past we’ve held PoARTry exhibitions, readings, and workshops. In 2015 we saw a photo of a little library in a Melbourne suburban street and decided to create something similar in Dunedin.

Once funding was secured we set out to build, paint and distribute 10 of these libraries (we’ve named them Lilliput Libraries) to keen Guardians. The idea – take a book and leave a book – has been embraced by Dunedin residents and we now have 77 Lilliput Libraries scattered around the city, with another 12 ‘in progress’ and an order for 30 more – these are all ‘taken’.

With the Lilliput Libraries project well under way, we looked around for another project and came up with POSTs – Poems on Steps. Sheryl McCammon and I, a.k.a. the Step Sisters, have been working alongside Nicky Page, the UNESCO City of Literature Director, in securing all the necessary permissions required to paint poems/words around Dunedin, a city of many steps.

With two projects completed and another starting in mid-January, we’re currently working towards getting two more step projects through the consent process. Public reaction has been amazing, with passers-by stopping to talk, share stories about poetry and street art, and even ask, ‘how come you’re doing this graffiti in daylight?’ As Sheryl is a professional artist and I’m exceptionally clever at splattering paint, we have quite separate ‘on-the-job’ roles. I help with any undercoat details, feed the parking meter and read stories to Sheryl as she paints – hence our logo!