David Merritt is a self-driven New Zealand poet. He is known for bringing his signature poetry bricks to towns all around New Zealand, in order to reach a wider variety of Kiwis and inspire them to take a greater interest in NZ poetry. His poetry bricks are made from banana box cardboard and Reader’s Digest condensed book covers.

Last week David was Featherston Booktown's poet in residence in the lead up to National Poetry Day on the 23rd of August.

Hi David, please tell us about being the poet in residence in Featherston. What did a day's work look like for you?

I’d been invited to be part of the 2019 Featherston Booktown in May but the weekend clashed with the Hamilton Zinefest which I’ve been going to regularly for many many years. So I sent down a poetrybrick of 45 poems instead, which served as a stunt double for me, and which had its own install at the Miracle Room gallery for the weekend. It was very well received and so I was asked back in person. The only time I had free was last week.

A day's work in Featherston was really in many ways no different from my days in many other places in NZ. You install your carcass near a cafe, bookshop or library and you start to work at a street side level, off a bench or small fold out table, for 8 or 10 hours. Location may depend on shade or shelter, foot traffic, proximity to toilets etc. The only real difference was the many school visits I had organised by Booktown Featherston - something I’ve discovered I really enjoy doing. And of course all the second hand bookshops!

So you might do a talk at a school in the morning and install yourself at a bookshop in the afternoon. I did a whole day at the High School and talked to 3 or 4 classes on topics ranging from the history of computers and the ’net in DTP, publishing, poetry writing etc through to the balance between the analog and digital realms, fake media, 1984 dystopian futures etc. I had a great time installed in the corner of the Public Library, talking to anyone who stopped by and asked what I was up to…

How was your work received in the small town of Featherston?

There are times you forget that on one level, yes, you are physically in a small town in a small country called New Zealand but now the giant interwebs and social media platforms project that work out much, much further to a broader section of a NZ (and increasingly) worldwide audience. Both the town and the Internet seemed very pleased by my time in Booktown. The global village seems to gobble up distance and concepts of “small”, “isolated” and “provincial” quite easily. I find that I’m pretty well liked and accepted all over the country now for doing what I do. It was my first time in the Wairarapa. I think I did ok.

Did you have any interesting conversations with residents?

Yes. I learnt a vast amount about the current state of our literary industry from folk who had been involved in it for many years and decades. It was quite enlightening and sobering. I learnt about some arcane areas of military history. I met the nice man with 5 Land rovers (there’s one in every town). I literally met the butcher and the baker (but not the candlestick maker!) at the Saturday market as well. I even had some nice conversations with many cats and dogs over the week too.

Your poetry is accessible - you literally take it to the streets and introduce it to readers. Why is this type of poetry-outreach important to you?

I studied the NZ literary and in particular poetry business model quite long and hard leading up to starting working at a street level over a decade ago. I knew instinctively to avoid the degree mill conveyor belts running from the writing schools. I just knew they would not serve me well. So, once I worked that out, lots of things flowed on from there - that I would become my own book designer, proofreader, publisher, distributor, retailer etc. The range of academic writing is really quite small, it’s only a tiny percentage of the population of the country. And it addresses mostly an audience of like minds. I wanted to reach the vast bulk, the 95% of Kiwis who are blissfully unaware the established literary industry even exists.

I do what I do out of sheer economic necessity and terror and fear of starving to death. I’ve eliminated all of the middle people between me and an audience of readers in order to maximise my potential small income. It was a very conscious move on my part to walk the path I do. That accessibility carries over into the digital realm as well. And my arrival on a bench in Auckland 11 years ago just happily coincided with the arrival of the first of the Zinefests as well - which gave me an immediate community of like minded, supportive folk.

Please tell us a bit about how your poetry is published - the materials and process, and what the craft of book-making means to you.

For a start when you’re producing over 3000 hand made publications a year, when you make your living the extremely hard way like I do, it feels slightly strange to be called a “craft” when in reality I feel like I’m running the world’s smallest sweatshop. It’s highly specialised book making, performed in public using recycled everyday materials I can source locally and made out of a box I can carry around. I’m no crafty dilettante making special collection destined $200 artists books! I’m a very, very, practical-minded poet that publishes, that sees no future in my books being made overseas and shipped back to the 9 or 11 bookshops in NZ that sell brand new, NZ poetry books. You can’t make a living that way. In order to make the (very) modest income I do make, I’m the poet, publisher, retailer, tour manager, publicist, cook, chief bottle washer, forklift driver, bean counter, clutterist, marketing director, stylist, proofreader, designer, elder states-person, mentor, legal team, union rep, negotiator, mechanic, social media strategist, shop steward etc, etc. It’s a big list for one person.

What is a ''poetry brick'' and where can readers find them?

The #poetrybrick started a few years back when I started to make “paperback” versions of the little books as reading sets - sets of 25 or 30 poems I could give out to an audience to actually read and swap around amongst themselves. Its an analog attempt to be in many places at once - ever so possible in this day and age of massive digi-tech with live streams and youtube channels etc.

Are there any particular poets, novelists or books that have meant a lot to you in your life?

Tuwhare and Baxter, Frame, Mansfield and Crump. Sargeson and Peter Olds. Michael O’Leary’s Irish Annals. Any Orwell or Hunter S Thompson or Tom Wolfe. The cyberpunk writers - esp Neal Stephenson.