Sick Power Trip

by Erik Kennedy

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

Published October 9, 2025

Reviews

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed it. One of the best and funniest poetry books I’ve read. Reignited my passion for writing poetry. It also warms my heart to see that this was published in my home New Zealand.

[Gail Ingram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished reading Sick Power Trip by @erikcurtiskennedy - and what a book. By the time I got to ‘Reviewing the Fleet’ in section 3, I was basically cry-laughing, how one brave voice can take on the freight train of climate change and his orange flag, a force of ethic and intellect, is all we remember. Erik is holding up the words written by war makers and power brokers and felling us with the irony, the pathos, the wit of a poet at the top of his game. I set out to write about ‘Horses in the Dark, which he read at his happy-happy launch in Ōtautahi. This poem loomed so large in my imagination (and back yard), that if I had read nothing else all year, I would be poetry-complete, but as I guffawed, gulped and screwed my eyes through each section, the whole collection grew with the “annihilating potential” of Erik’s horse galloping in the dark with “undreamt-of-grace” and “open-air-precision”. If you read no other collection this year, read this one, and be reminded to keep “sallying forth into the night with your needle-nose pliers” to let down a few SUV tyres - for so much fun in the chillwarm.

#poetryreview #erikkennedy #nzpoetry

[Travis Cottreau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! just finished this book. I have not read a collection more enjoyable than this since Hera Lindsay Bird's first book.

it's exactly the kind of poetry I love, clever. quirky and walking the tightrope of serious messages with freaking hilarious.

it is so, so good. I hope that Erik continues to write poetry for the rest of his life and that his life is long and healthy.

[Mick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insanely funny.