Some great poetry events coming up in the next week or two. The Going West Trust is having its very first fundraiser this Sunday in Oratia, West Auckland. All details can be found here, but I must ensure that you all realise that your $75 ticket will indeed include ALL food and ALL your beverage requirements (within reason, lushes) – this has apparently been a point of confusion for some punters. Of course, there will also be superb lit-entertainment in the form of Glen Colquhoun, Emily Perkins, Philip Simpson and others, plus lots of live music – and all in luscious Moroccan tents pitched in glorious landscaped gardens. Oh, and it's been confirmed that the giant vintage steam engine present will not only be steaming baskets of mussels and corn, but puddings too. Eh? What’s not to like? Let your fingers do the walking – call Murray Gray now on 09-817 3236 and book it, Danno.

Another fine series of events starting this week is the national tour of Ben Kemp and Uminari. Mr Kemp is a NZ-born poet and musician who lives in Tokyo and ‘draws inspiration from his Maori roots and his fascination with Japanese culture’. This gang of four (Ben, plus Koyu Suzuki, Mitsuru Ogata and Taro Okatake, pictured) is hitting the road starting this Thursday in Wellington, moving to Napier on Friday, Taupo on the 3rd, Rotorua on the 6th, and fetching up at St Kevins Arcade, K’Rd in Auckland on the 8th at 7pm (plus lots of other dates after that).

They're to be ably supported in Auckland by some of our very best Pacific poets including Tusiata Avia, Karlo Mila, Serie Barford, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Mua Strickson-Pua, D J Kaamali and Doug Poole. The evening is purported to herald the launch of Issue 19 of online poetry e-zine Blackmail Press which will be edited by Portionte Floes (a poet from Seattle, Google tells me – if anyone cares to elaborate on this, please do so). Don’t know where you get tickets, doesn’t say, think you just turn up. I’ll endeavour to find out and throw it up as a comment, because I’m so going.

Check out the rest of the live dates all around the country. He and his cohorts will be taking in venues from Auckland to Dunedin this month, so pop along if you can.