Exhibition - Lifecycle of a Poem by Jeremy Roberts

“In Hawke’s Bay, there is an abundance of events and opportunities, including ‘open mic’ nights at Napier Live Poets, Hawke’s Bay Live Poets, the Common Poets Society. This exhibition builds on the poetry kaupapa at C.A.N. – which began with Poets Corner and developed to include the engagement of poetry with visual art.

The exhibition is called The Lifecycle of a Poem because I wanted to show something that is usually hidden: what poems look like while they are still becoming themselves. The byline — from seed to setting loose — suggests that poems begin as small impulses and eventually move out into the world. Generally, poems are only seen once they are “clean” — typed, formatted, published, or read aloud. But that is only one stage in a poem’s life. Of course, in 2026, the most common practice now for writers is to draft on digital devices and delete the unwanted words, with no ‘creative history’ remaining — no documentation of a journey, at all.

In this exhibition you’ll see original A4 draft pages from many years of writing — real working pages. For me, they have become visual objects as much as literary ones. You’ll also see the completed poems these drafts eventually became and where they ended up. Many have been published in poetry journals, and all have been read aloud at poetry meetings and events in many locations. Some are now videos.

I am lucky to have found a method that works for me. Hopefully, this exhibition connects with anyone curious about creativity — in this case, how poems begin, how they change, and how they eventually get set loose.”

Endorsed by National Poetry Day

For more information Lifecycle of a Poem - Creative Arts Napier

Creative Arts Napier is open Monday to Saturday 10am - 4pm