The land is like a sea-bird but where
are its wings? The land is like a fish.
The fish of Māui, hauled up from the sea floor, writhing.

The ocean is a road, a table and a bed.
It takes our bodies up to air and floats them.
The ocean is an open question.

Dinah Hawken, 'The Uprising', 2014

Great to see poet Dinah Hawken here! Such a clear-sighted, brave and – when you least expect it – mischievous writer.

The composers Arvo Pärt and Terry Riley, who are marking their 90th birthdays this year, remain intriguing musical outliers, notable for the stubbornness with which they have held to their youthful convictions. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/28KPVb

Zohran Mamdani ran on freezing the rent in NYC.

Abigail Spanberger ran on supporting fired federal workers and lowering the cost of living in VA.

Mikie Sherrill ran on lowering utility bills in NJ.

Ensuring people can afford to live a decent life is the path forward.

Congratulations, Hannah!

Brian Eno's New Paintings Are A Riot Of Color And Play - And They're Up For Grabs news.artnet.com/art-world/br...

The powerful new memoir by Tāme Iti is a reminder that he is due a royal honour

A bonfire of the climate policies. An emissions Guy Fawkes Day

‘There is a disconcerting sense that something much more serious is going on, that all the hokum and stage magic might be misdirection of the sort that enables something secret to enter the room.’

Francis Gooding on Dr John’s ‘very strange record’ ‘Gris-Gris’.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

An interview about what I love in the new poetry from Aotearoa, and a description of Te Whāriki, the book on NZ poetry I edited with Dougal McNeill and poet laureate Robert Sullivan:
www.nzbooklovers.co.nz/post/intervi...

“We rescued one another. . . . He was the artist and I the storyteller.” In a new essay, Patti Smith reflects on her early days in New York and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.

Please come and see my show at BATS next week: open.substack.com/pub/simonswe...
Live poetry readings with improvised musical soundscape from the band Filtersphere. $25 waged, $15 unwaged, we’re donating to Women’s Refuge. Nov 13-15 at BATS theatre. Tickets at BATS: bats.co.nz/whats-on/dic...

Dark, grim new character monologue: open.substack.com/pub/simonswe...

Reel Deal: The Echoplex Tape Delay Now And Then reverb.com/news/reel-de...

What a damning article

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Life With Machines: Baratunde Thurston sits down with Brian Eno to talks AI art, Oblique Strategies and making music, April 2, 2025 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnei...

It’s Chapter 83 of The Autism Diaries?! - open.substack.com/pub/simonswe...

Wrote about Season Two of Nobody Wants This over on Substack today: simonsweetman.substack.com/p/its-defini...

Some good news: the Whitireia Publishing Course will continue as a collaboration between the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) and Whitireia. Places for the 2026 intake are limited, so anyone interested can register their interest here: www.whitireiapublishing.co.nz.

Week in Review:

Dr Samuel Mehr says the Government values science, but their ‘idiotic’ approach to funding it will cost them their best and brightest.

Sunday essay about putting pictures on the wall that tell the story of you and the room you’re in before you ever need to say a thing: open.substack.com/pub/simonswe...

New poem:

sometimes you write
and no one sees it

which is good
for your practice

but especially devastating
if you still publish it

simonsweetman.substack.com/p/poem-boo