Tim Jones's Blog

From 10-12 March, I’m doing three poetry readings in three South Island cities in three days! Below are all the details – it would be great if you could come along, and if you can’t, please encourage your friends in Te Waipounamu to do so. Thanks to the Octagon Poets’ Collective and Canterbury Poets Collective for inviting me to read, and to Arts Murihiku for kindly agreeing to host my Invercargill event.

The Schedule

Tuesday 10 March: Waihōpai / Invercargill: Southland Roots, Southern Journeys: Hear poet Tim Jones read poems of Southland and talk about the southern roots of his poetry

Venue: Whare Taupua, 34 Forth Street, Invercargill

Date and time: Tuesday 10 March, 5-7pm

Poet Tim Jones grew up in Southland. He now lives in Wellington, but he started writing poetry in Southland, and the life and land of Murihiku continue to be a central thread in his poetry. Join Tim Jones for a poetry reading and Q&A session. Tim will read from his latest poetry collection, Dracula in the Colonies, and also read poems about Southland from his earlier collections. Tim’s books will be available for sale and signing at the event, and there will be time for a chat over a cuppa afterwards

Programme:

Doors open 5pm
Tim’s reading, followed by a Q&A session, starts at 5.30pm
At about 6.30pm, there will be time for a cuppa and a chat
Event finishes 7pm

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1415486880117301/

Wednesday 11 March: Ōtepoti / Dunedin: Octagon Poets’ Collective, 7pm, New Athenaeum Theatre – with Kay McKenzie Cooke as guest MC, an Open Mike (see Kay on the night to sign up for that) and guest poets Tim Jones and Richard Reeve. All welcome; entry is free, but there is a range of food and drink available to purchase at the Theatre.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/937303555486613

Thursday 12 March: Ōtautahi / Christchurch: Canterbury Poets Collective, Ara Imagitech Theatre, 130 Madras Street, Christchurch. The event kicks off at 6.30pm with an open mike, then there’s a break for mingling and book-buying, then the guest readers start around 7.30pm. I’m reading with Megan Clayton and Dietrich Soakai.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/3937533586552549

Dracula in the Colonies is heading north, and I’m coming along as minder and general Renfield. Then he’s returning home for a reading on Sunday 15 February in Wellington.

Auckland, 10 and 12 February

I’m off to the big city to read at Poetry Live and take part in the Aotea Square Poetry Takeover!

Tuesday 10 February: Poetry Live, Cafe 39, 39 Ponsonby Road, 7.30-10pm

I’m the guest reader at Poetry Live, Auckland’s long-running live poetry event.

What: Poetry Live, Auckland
Where: Cafe 39, 39 Ponsonby Road
When: Tuesday 10 February, 7.30-10pm
With: Open mike + guest musician Cold Champagne

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1822227305127271

Thursday 12 February: Aotea Square Poetry Takeover, Aotea Square, 5–8pm

Poetry is coming for Aotea Square! On Thursday 12 Feb, the Aotea Square Poetry Takeover is happening, with performances and stalls, and I’ll be there as part of the contingent from The Cuba Press. Come and find The Cuba Press stall – I’ll be on duty with poets Bryan Walpert and Elena de Roo. There are lots of poets and plenty going on in the Square for these three hours!

Wellington, 15 February

I’m reading poems from my new collection “Dracula in the Colonies” at the Office Bar, 124 Riddiford St, Newtown on Sunday 15 February – you’re very welcome to come along, and entry is free.

This is part of the Poetry and Music at Newtown’s Office Bar series. The event starts at 4pm with an Open Mike (make sure you arrive on time if you want to sign up to read), then there’s a break for food & drink from the bar downstairs, then I’ll be reading around 5.30. See you there!

The March mini-tour: Invercargill, Dunedin, and Christchurch

In March, I’ll be doing three poetry readings in three days! I’ll post full details in a couple of weeks’ time, including news about all the readers at the Ōtepoti and Ōtautahi events, but here is the summary:

Waihōpai / Invercargill: “Southland roots, southern journeys”: Tuesday 10 March, 5-7pm, Whare Taupua, 34 Forth St. Reading + Q&A

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1415486880117301/

Ōtepoti / Dunedin: Wednesday 11 March, Octagon Poets’ Collective, 7pm – guest reader

Ōtautahi / Christchurch: Tuesday 12 March, Canterbury Poets Collective, Ara Imagitech Theatre, 130 Madras Street, Christchurch, from 6.30pm – guest reader

Why so gloomy, Drac? Let the sunshine in!

Dracula in the Colonies, my new poetry collection, has been stepping out into the spring light with pleasingly positive results and surprisingly few scorch marks:

“My Wellington” article in The Post (you may hit a paywall when accessing this one): My Wellington: Tim Jones on life beneath the trees, where the tūī yell and the stories startFlash Frontier feature – many thanks to Michelle Elvy for this: Ah, Dracula! Tim Jones on poetry, squatting and being a creature of imaginationBeware the Moon interview- my thanks to Denver Grenell and Tee Wood for including me me in this series – make sure to check out the other interviews, too! NZ Horror Books: Author interview with Tim Jones & Andrew Imms

As a bonus, my climate fiction, and climate fiction in general, has had a lovely boost from Claire Mabey in The Spinoff. It’s been a good way to finish the year.

Three Ways To Make Dracula Count

If you’d like to help Dracula in the Colonies meet more readers, here are three things you can do:

Ask for it in bookshops: If your local bookshop doesn’t stock Dracula in the Colonies, please ask them to! All the details they’ll need are on The Cuba Press order page for the book.Ask your local library to order it: Many libraries have pages where you can ask for books to be added to the collection. If your local library doesn’t stock the book, please request it.Goodreads: If you use Goodreads and have read Dracula in the Colonies, please add a rating, or even better a review, to the book’s Goodreads page.

I first met Wellington poet Kerry Popplewell when we both did the Writing the Landscape creative writing course at Victoria University in 2003, and along with other members of that course we met from time to time to discuss our writing and what was going on in our lives. I admired Kerry’s poetry, her zest for tramping, her wisdom, and her great attitude to life. I’m very pleased I met her, and very sad to hear of her death.

I interviewed Kerry about her poetry in 2010 on my blog: https://www.timjonesbooks.co.nz/2010/10/27/an-interview-with-kerry-popplewell/

Kerry’s funeral is on Tuesday 25 November, and will be livestreamed. Funeral and tribute details: https://www.harbourcityfunerals.co.nz/live-streaming-tributes/?funeral=XjToR

It was a dark and stormy night – no, really, it was! – when my new poetry collection Dracula in the Colonies, together with Mandy Hager’s new “Chasing Ghosts” mystery Revenge and Rabbit Holes, were launched at Unity Books Wellington earlier this month.

Photo credit: James Fraser

Happily, that didn’t prevent a good crowd gathering to attend the launch, enjoy the lovely food put on by Unity Books, listen to the speeches, and buy some books.

Colin Marshall of the Whitireia Publishing Programme, who helped to put together the launch, also doubled as videographer – here are his videos of publisher Mary McCallum, my “launcher”, poet Harvey Molloy who said some lovely things about my work and my writing career, and myself speaking at the launch.

Mary McCallum from The Cuba Press gets the book launch underway:

Harvey Molloy’s launch speech for Tim Jones’ new poetry collection “Dracula in the Colonies”:

Tim Jones speaks at the launch of his new poetry collection “Dracula in the Colonies”:

Since then, I’ve had a nice My Wellington profile in The Post, although you may find it firewalled. Watch out for more interviews and events to come!

You can buy Dracula in the Colonies from Unity Books Wellington, other independent bookstores, and direct from the publisher.

Next, I’m looking forward to reading Mandy’s book! Here’s my review of the first in the series.

My new poetry collection Dracula in the Colonies is launching at Unity Books Wellington on Wednesday 1 October from 6-7.30pm. It’s a double book launch: my  Dracula in the Colonies and Mandy Hager’s new novel Revenge and Rabbit Holes.

All are welcome – no need to RSVP. And if you invite your friend, friends, partner, partners, or large and lavishly remunerated workplace* along, even better!

*Possibly fictional.

Dracula in the Colonies has received a couple of very nice endorsements from poets whose work I admire:

Janis Freegard: “Tim Jones’ powerful new collection takes us from Grimsby to Antarctica, traversing family life, migration, politics, climate change and loss. This is honest, tender, funny and intelligent writing from a story-teller poet.”

Erik Kennedy: “Eminently readable but never comfortable … Dracula in the Colonies is full of characters you’ll love to hate from a poet whose work we know to love.”

Thanks you, Erik and Janis!

All the details

The launch will be at Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington, from 6-7.30pm on Wednesday 1 October 2025. There will be drinks, nibbles, and books for sale and signing.

The Facebook event is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1159319136008748/

My thanks to everyone who has already said they plan to attend, and those who’ve let me know they can’t make it.

I can’t make it, but I’d love a copy of the book:

The Cuba Press has you covered! You can pre-order Dracula in the Colonies here: https://thecubapress.nz/shop/dracula-in-the-colonies/

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You and your friends are warmly invited to a double book launch at Unity Books on Wednesday 1 October: my new poetry collection Dracula in the Colonies and Mandy Hager’s new novel Revenge and Rabbit Holes.

All are welcome – no need to RSVP!

The launch will be at Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington, from 6-7.30pm on Wednesday 1 October 2025. There will be drinks, nibbles, and books for sale and signing.

The Facebook event is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1159319136008748/

My thanks to everyone who has already said they plan to attend, and those who’ve let me know they can’t make it.

If you can’t make it, please pre-order Dracula in the Colonies here: https://thecubapress.nz/shop/dracula-in-the-colonies/

Halfway to Everywhere, by Vivienne Ullrich (The Cuba Press, 2024), 70 pp. Available from https://thecubapress.nz/shop/halfway-to-everywhere/

Halfway to Everywhere is Vivienne Ullrich’s second poetry collection, and I’m impressed. The poems in Halfway to Everywhere show a lot of formal ability as a poet, and as the collection goes on, that formal elegance was increasingly matched with subject matter that engaged me emotionally.

Many of these poems take as their subject matter art, historical figures and fairy tales. Mary Queen of Scots, Little Red Riding Hood, Scheherazade, Jack of “Jack and the Beanstalk” fame and the artist Max Gimblett all put in an appearance, as the poet invites us to see the world from their points of view.

“Mary Queen of Scots” (p. 24) is a good example of these poems. It begins:

I die tomorrow. It is a simple thing
and yet it clamps my belly.
I pray for a clean stroke
and dignity.

From “Rutu” (p. 18), a poem inspired by Rita Angus’ painting of the same name:

… how is it we gift
this month with myths of rebirth, when an eye
towards our cross of stars would signal time
for harvest, time for tuning in to self.

I was very impressed by the quality of both the poetry, and the thought that had gone into the poetry, in Halfway to Everywhere. I did find that – perhaps because of the number of poems about artworks and historical figures – it took about half the collection before I started to engage with the poems emotionally – in other words, to connect with them as well as be impressed by them. But as I continued reading, I found poems that spoke to me more directly, like “Footprint” (p. 62):

I hear you. No doubt
it is different in my skin.
I am my peculiar set of molecules
after all, and I have the benefit of
context and the words I left out.

This skill in addressing multiply points of view comes to fruition on my favourite poem in the collection, “Little Red Riding Hood” (p. 48), a retelling in which the dramatis personae all get a turn as protagonist: the wolf, the huntsman, the grandmother, and the girl herself. This poem combines formal ability and sly wit in a way that works extremely well. An excerpt won’t do it justice – check out the whole poem!

Vivienne Ullrich is a talented, clever, thoughtful poet, and as I read through this collection, I found her poems and her poetry sneaking up on me. Halfway to Everywhere is a good place to be.

Strays & Waifs: A Chasing Ghosts Mystery, by Mandy Hager (The Cuba Press, 2024), 286 pp. See https://mandyhager.com/chasing-ghosts/ and https://thecubapress.nz/shop/strays-and-waifs/

Reviewed by Tim Jones

I heard Mandy Hager read the first chapter of Strays & Waifs on a climate fiction and poetry panel at Newtown Library. It was a gripping description of a house destroyed by flood as the person living there, the novel’s protagonist Bella, can only watch in horror.

We learn that Bella is a climate fiction author and former climate activist, and both these aspects play into the narrative, but this is a murder mystery with a supernatural component. The novel does not follow the path I was expecting, but once I had recalibrated my expectations I got fully on board with the new direction.

I called Bella the protagonist above, because we meet her first and gradually learn about her past as a climate activist and how what happened then has led to deep trauma that still affects her in the present. That, and an unwelcome reminder of her past who turns up in the present, is one of the ghosts present in the story, but far from the only one.

That brings us to Freyja, the other protagonist – I think she is central enough to this story that she crosses the porous line between important secondary character and protagonist. Freyja has some unusual abilities which Bella initially recoils from – as did I as a reader at first; but Mandy Hager shows with great skill how Bella comes to tolerate and then accept those abilities, which come in mighty handy as the pair become involved in bringing justice to the dead and rescue to the living.

I know people very like Bella, so I had no difficulty believing in her as a character; I don’t know many people like Freyja, but she is so well-drawn that I soon found myself believing in her as well.

Mandy Hager writes with tremendous immediacy. And this is no drawing-room mystery: there is action too, vividly described action in which the skills Bella learned as a committed direct activist come into play. As a reader, I felt myself slipping in mud, I felt branches slap my face as I ran through the bush with a bad actor in hot pursuit.

The identity and nature of the villain is all too plausible – all too depressingly plausible – but they’re not exactly subtle, and I would have welcomed a bit more misdirection in that regard. Though, looking at the world around us, villains now delight in boasting of their villainy – so maybe I’m the one clinging to outdated expectations?

There are some really satisying punch-the-air moments in this book, and if the biggest one for me is when Bella turns to the New Zealand Companies Register database to find vital information, equally satisfying moments are also there for people who are less interested in deep-dive research into corporate villains than I am!

Strays & Waifs does justice to its premise, to its main and secondary characters, and to the reader, and starts to pull on the dangling threads of Bella’s past in ways that make me excited for the possibility of further “Chasing Ghosts” mysteries. Very little stays hidden forever.

The thirty-one legs of Vladimir Putin, by P S Cottier and N G Hartland (Braidwood, NSW: Finlay Lloyd Publishing, 2024), 115pp, https://finlaylloyd.com/product/the-thirty-one-legs-of-vladimir-putin-ps-cottier-ng-hartland/

Reviewed by Tim Jones.

Autocrats and body doubles go together like Elon Musk and Nazi salutes. Stalin had body doubles, Saddam Hussein had body doubles, and I wouldn’t be surprised if, somewhere in America, a small fleet of actors are even now applying the orange spray tan and putting on the mannerisms, the cruelty, the tiny hands.

So it’s very likely Vladimir Putin has his own set of look-alikes. This excellent novella – maybe it’s more accurate to call it a collection of linked stories – takes that concept and runs with it. The thirty-one legs of Vladimir Putin won the annual 20/40 publishing prize, for works of fiction and nonfiction between 20K and 40K words, and that win was well deserved.

In 18 short chapters, plus a Prologue, the authors take us on a worldwide, whirlwind tour of men who have the good or ill fortune to resemble Vladimir Putin in appearance. They have been paid by Russian functionaries to stand by to stand in for the big boss. Some Putins are pleased with the deal, others are having doubts both practical and existential. From Valparaiso to The Hague, what with invading Ukraine and all, it’s hard out here for a Putin.

Each chapter is a snappy portrait of a man and a place. There are hints of an arc plot whirring away in the background, but it’s mostly implied rather than overt. It comes to the fore as the book nears its end, especially in the final two chapters, which revisit the Putins from the Prologue (Aussie Putin Dave McDermott) and Chapter 1 (English Putin Samuel Chatswood). A Putin’s life is not a happy one.

The quality of the prose and the specificity of the descriptions are among the pleasures of this book – but what I most enjoyed is the subtle shifts of tone within and between chapters, from menace to humour to those uncomfortable places in between.

Why thirty-one legs, you may ask? Buy the book to find out – and buy it for a short, punchy, amusing, thought-provoking read that, unlike taking on the role of a Vladimir Putin lookalike, you won’t regret.