Death Goddess Guide to Self Love by Carin Smeaton
April 2025
Death Goddess sings loud, proud and off-key about the trauma, mess and gore of our awa atua, red river fox, our frenemy enemy ovaries! This goddess isn’t afraid of nothing. She’s not afraid to spill her moon sickness on the western line. She is not afraid to kick up a storm in colonial institutions. She’s not gonna wear their shame. Rather, this collection kicks these brutal systems high up into the whetu for a pulse check. She’s Carin Smeaton’s third full length collection of new original poetry, her unexpected baby, her new born freedom fighter!
“Carin’s kupu come sideways, they break the rules, they respect the kuia and the power of slang, her poems are a testament to staying sly and aware, her angles are always a beautiful surprise, she embraces the ordinary and the divine, and biting into her mahi is to experience both, like popping candy let loose in the cage of the waha.” —Talia Marshall
“Poetry that bears brave, hard-hitting witness to Aotearoa today, calls out its inequalities, spits at its abuses, sings of its cultural vibrancy, weaves with its surviving colours.” —Tracey Slaughter