Posting mail in the Capital during the New Zealand International Arts Festival will be a literary experience, with some New Zealand Post posting boxes delivering New Zealand poetry.

Over the next three weeks, three posting boxes in Wellington will recite poems from New Zealand writers to celebrate Writers and Readers Week.

The posting boxes are sited outside Books & More on Lambton Quay, Arty Bees on Courtenay Place, and by the Cenotaph near Parliament. They are fitted with a sensor that reacts to heat, and will deliver poems to people that are close enough to post mail.

Poets featured include Kate Camp, Dinah Hawken, Jo Randerson, Vincent O'Sullivan, Jacqui Sturn, Geoff Cochrane, Glenn Colquhoun and Peter Bland.

(There's no word on whether concealed cameras will be watching the boxes to catch the reactions of inebriated passers-by.)