OVERSEAS EXPERIENCE
ĀPORO PRESS, 2025
OVERSEAS EXPERIENCE is my debut full-length poetry collection, published by Āporo Press. From Āporo Press Editor Damien Levi, "From Overseas, billionaires, the digital realm, 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'."
"Nicola writes with her poetic ink infused with the pulse of her own heart, her whakapapa, and of the wider world both past and present, and it is utterly compulsive reading."
–Paula Green, NZ Poetry Shelf
"It’s rewarding when a poet puts on the page the ways you’ve experienced the world."
–Melissa Oliver, takahē
"There’s something cosmic about Andrews’ evocation of travel here"
–Jordan Tricklebank, Māori Lit Blog
"Nicola writes both to and from her whenua in this raw, emotional collection, divided by the liminal space of airports and long-distance travel that many of us know too well."
–Ash Davida Jane, Kete Books
Order now from Unity Books NZ, Expensive Hobby (wholesale) or Wheelers Books (libraries).
For press, event, or distribution requests, please email nikora@duck.com
Hinting at Decolonization
KITH BOOKS, 2024
Hinting at Decolonization explores Indigenous sovereignty, family, and speaks back to the cheeky ways our cultures are appropriated and commodified.
"Nicola Andrews is a bright star in Pasifika (Pacific Islander) literature. This poet embodies a fierce decolonial spirit, subversive humor, and wondrous love that their tūpuna (ancestors) would indeed be proud of."
–Craig Santos Perez, author of From Unincorporated Territory [åmot]; winner of the National Book Award for Poetry
"In direct, brilliant strokes, Andrews cuts through gaslit narratives of polite society, recasting the world in terms of what our actions mean to the earth, and all the things standing in the way of our languages, land, and the way we stand to protect them. Read this book to meditate on what respect really is, and what it means to care."
–Chelsea T Hicks, author of A Calm and Normal Heart: Stories
Māori Maid Difficult
TRAM EDITIONS, 2024
Māori Maid Difficult twines together themes of takatāpui (queer) urban Pasifika identity, Indigenous sovereignty and language, familial obligations, and jester-like wit for the chronically online.
"In so many ways Māori Maid Difficult is a first yet it brings to mind generations of Māori poets who have gone before. Smart, sharp, funny, brittle, supple. Giving and refusing. Irreverent and sensitive. Vulnerable and mysterious. Aroha and hahaha and hā. All at the same time. All in the best ways."
–Alice Te Punga Somerville, author of Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised; winner of the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry
"This pukapuka has incredible range, I think because us difficult-to-pin-down Māori have incredible range. When you open this book be prepared for a proper haerenga."
–essa may ranapiri, author of ransack and ECHIDNA; winner of the Keri Hulme Award
AGAPE
rinky dink press, 2024
AGAPE is a darkly meditative micro-zine published by rinky dink press, a fun-loving indie press whose mission is to get micro-poetry in the hands of the people, by pricing their handmade micro-zines at a dollar each. Check them out below or contact me for a copy!
SENTIMENTAL VALUE
Ghost City Press, 2023
Sentimental Value is a series of brief meditations on grief and inherited taonga. Download the micro-chap for free, or contribute a donation which I will forward to the Maui Strong Fund.