In her full-length poetry debut, Overseas Experience, Nicola Andrews (Ngāti Paoa, Pākehā) finds herself on two sides of the Pacific Ocean, writing to and from Tāmaki Makaurau and San Francisco.

From Overseas, billionaires, the digital world, Dr. Ropata and a rogue pōhutukawa collide. It’s a world beyond the long white cloud, examined through its eccentricities and familiarities.

The Experience is all-encompassing—full of being Māori, being a hōhā, being a nerd and being fully crack up. The in-between is a transitory existence of liminal spaces, aeroplane meals and customs fatigue that muddles the direction of ‘home’.

Deeply referential and rewardingly funny, Overseas Experience is a collection resonant with anyone who’s made a new home across the sea.

so sip your water, smile at your gated community
make your last declarations, pounamu in hand
before your throat dries out like a myna
warbling in the springtime, broadcasting

here i am here i am here i am