The New Zealand Poetry Society has created a new position for 2021 called Communities Outreach Officer. A part of the NZPS mission is to build bridges between diverse poetry societies and community groups both nationally and internationally. We assist, support, and promote these societies and groups, as well as identifying what programmes and services they may have that NZPS could adopt or adapt for our members.

The Communities Outreach Officer will help us achieve this vision as well as seeking creative opportunities to bring poetry to public and private spaces within New Zealand. Sherry Grant will take on this role in 2021 and her bio follows.

Sherry Grant is a New Zealand classical pianist, cellist and poet originally from Taiwan. She started writing poetry in June 2020 and is known for her Japanese short form poetry written in English. She also invented a new poetry form called the ‘nonaku’. Sherry’s goal is to write 2000 poems before her first writing anniversary. So far she has 100 poems accepted for publication and many are in translation to 20 languages. Her upcoming publications on Amazon include ‘Bat Girl’, a first poetry collection for kids, co-authored by her youngest daughter Zoe Grant (6 years old), and her second poetry book ‘Poetry Machine’ is a collection of longer poems inspired by great old master poets from around the world. In 2019, Sherry organised and performed in ‘War and Peace’ Arts and Music Festival and ‘100 Years Journey’ concert tour, both featuring the viola and premiered 5 new viola works written for her.