Are you involved in any local poetry groups or collectives?
I’m on the committee for the Canterbury Poets’ Collective (CPC) in Christchurch. Since its inception in 1990, CPC has run an annual series of poetry readings – Poetry in Performance – and we bring guest poets from across Aotearoa New Zealand to read with local poets.
Do you have a social media or digital profile for your poetry?
Website: www.theseventhletter.nz/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/gail.ingram.142
Instagram: www.instagram.com/gail_ingram_poet
Youtube (for visual poems set to music and images): www.youtube.com/@gailingrampoet
Do you promote poetry beyond your own work?
Yes! When I started at Hagley Writers’ Institute back in 2007, I made a commitment to not only write poetry but to see if I could support myself through poetry and become part of the poetry community. I joined South Island Writers Association and chaired it for many years. I began teaching creative writing and built up my free-lance editing work, editing for journals and individuals. Much of my paid work also means promoting others by its very nature, and it’s a joy.
At Write On School for Young Writers part of my brief is to encourage my young writers (primary and secondary age) to submit for competitions and journals. Some of my students’ poems feature here in the 2024 Given Words Poetry Competition: It is such a thrill to see their voices develop and their work being accepted and even win national and international competitions. Some of my students have gone onto having their own books published, including Molly Lawrence’s Parallel Lines chapbook launching in Christchurch this month.
Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve also organised National Poetry Day events for many different groups to bring Christchurch poets to the stage, including in the last two years bringing a line-up of local poets to read at our WORD Christchurch festival of readers and writers.
For CPC, I’m involved in not only running the reading series that brings local and international poets to Christchurch’s stage but also an annual event “Lambing Season” for young poets on National Poetry Day. It features four young and up-and-coming guest poets and an open mic. Our committee successfully ran a crowd-funding platform this year, which means we can keep bringing high-calibre poetry from around the country to our community.
As an editor, I’ve had the great privilege of selecting poetry for several literary magazines in Aotearoa, including takahē, Flash Frontier, and currently a fine line, which is the flagship magazine of New Zealand Poetry Society Te Rōpū Toikupu o Aotearoa. I especially love that our Aotearoa New Zealand magazines promote diversity and publish first-time poets alongside top names, people from all walks of life, minority to mainstream, and haiku alongside art and thoughtful articles and interviews.
And on my website the seventh letter, I have a red fridge like the one in my kitchen, where I publish one of my friend’s poems every now and then. Well… just because poetry is cool.
If you would like to see more of Gail Ingram’s work click on the following link: www.theseventhletter.nz/
