Live Encounters Poetry & Writing 16th Anniversary Volume Three
November- December 2025
Pages, poems by Anita Arlov.
Pages
Thanks to the internet
more and more people are swearing
the Earth is flat.
Texts blow affairs. Thoughts and prayers.
This nation owns a nuclear umbrella.
That one cosies up to the POTUS.
Social media: up for a slamming.
Riefenstahl’s still lying in her grave.
Hong Kong’s turn to brace.
New Zealand is the best place to grow chickens.
The wandering spider can cause painful
erections in humans lasting hours.
Johnny’s rescue dog is found to maul.
Jude muses, prone on a sleek sofa.
“Actors are forever defined by our roles.”
A chilling Minotaur retelling.
Taylor launches a radio station.
Ed’s stuck to his pop throne.
How to host without going broke.
Coffee cake studded with edible petals.
Once inside you forget you’re in the city.
Wicky’s life will be celebrated.
Roy will be remembered in his own way.
Nina, oh Nina, it’s been five years.
Cloud weeping icon.
Expect a sunflower
tomorrow.
Rarotonga stretches blue.
Bronzy travellers tiptoe barefoot along
the itty bitty rim of the world.
Untrumpeted
like double denim
rhyme is in
you buy rice crackers
I hear you out
I clean up cat sick
you cook prawn curry
gone is the leaf mountain
one of us abandoned
when it began to bucket down
you can wear your brown jumper again
now the sleeve’s mended
we fuel each the other
waxeye and feijoa
come sit
no nod needed
the know-how fire you set
is a song
dinner’s an hour off
so here’s a cup of carrot sticks
once in a blue moon, brie
© Anita Arlov
Anita is the child of Croatian parents displaced after WW2. She enjoys inventive poems and flash fiction; hosts workshops; and judges short form fiction. Anita has won the Divine Muses Poetry Competition, the NZ Flash Fiction Competition and has placed second in the Bath Flash Fiction Competition. She is widely anthologised, including Bonsai: Best small stories from Aotearoa/New Zealand; Broadsheet; New Flash Fiction Review; takahē magazine; Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction. She convened a dream team that ran the NZ Poetry Conference & Festival, a successful three-day celebration of all things poetry including vispo, wordcore, performance poetry, sung poems, cine-poetics and workshops. Over 200 poets and arts activists were involved including Poets Laureate. For ten years she managed popular spoken word event Inside Out Open Mic for Writers. In 2022 she was selected an Ockham Collective Arts Resident. “I like to conflate arresting facts with fiction, memory and emotion. Once I get a fix on a tone, I dive in and commit to getting out alive.” – Anita Arlov