A quick de-brief from my Auckland perspective of Montana Poetry day: I must urge you all to check out the winner of the Great NZ Digi-Poem competition which was announced at 'Poetry Central', the AUP/nzepc do last night. If this is one possible future for poetry, I'm all for it. Charlie Ward of Wellington has come up with a glorious visual response to Apirana Taylor's poem Hinemoa's Daughter, itself a poem which is by turns lyrically beautiful and just a bit gut-wrenching, a juxtaposition which is echoed nicely by the typography in Charlie's work. This competition has got to be an annual thing – the mix of graphic design, audio and poetry does it for me. You can see the other four finalists' work here.

Other than that, there were some great readings from the new AUP book Contemporary NZ Poets in Performance, with Iain Sharp and Michele Leggott MCing. There was an unexpected visitor from the deep South in the form of Cilla McQueen (remember her poetic gift to LeafSalon from Bluff 06?), surprising Fiona Farrell, who was about to read one of Cilla's poems, saying Cilla couldn't make it to Auckland, when suddenly Cilla said 'Well, I am here, actually' and was promptly clapped on to the stage to read herself. Fiona was there to launch her latest book, The Pop-Up book of Invasions (reviewed last week here by Tania Brady), which she read from to great effect.

Fiona had some inspiring words to the effect that she finds it so extremely heartening and encouraging when poets and writers can all gather together to celebrate each others' work. All writing, she said, benefits from support from other writers and all must remember it's a collaboration not a competition. A humbling moment. Wish I could remember exactly what she said, sod it.

Anyway - we tottered over the road, parched (the wine had run out before we got there, these bloody poets are such lushes) for a glimpse of Mr Andrew Fagan declaiming from his new book of poetry at the Auckland Art gallery – most entertaining. He's a very good speaker, an endearing nutcase such as he is always so relaxing it's easy to lose sight of how clever his words are. Which they are...