Q & A with Richard von Sturmer

Photo: Balamohan Shingade

Richard von Sturmer — is a writer, performer, and filmmaker, best known for penning the lyrics to Blam Blam Blam’s There is No Depression in New Zealand. A longtime practitioner and teacher of Zen Buddhism, he co-founded the Auckland Zen Centre. His latest collection, Slender Volumes (Spoor Books), was shortlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. His work spans poetry, memoir, and film, exploring themes of place, perception and our ever-changing world.

What draws you to write poetry - and what keeps bringing you back to the form?

I write poetry because it connects the outer world with my inner world. It’s like a second heart, always beating.

Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day brings poetry into the public realm. What do you think about this kind of poetic visibility - and where would you love to see one of your own poems appear?

It’s great for poetry to be accessible for the public. I’d like my poems to appear on tissue boxes and on toothpaste tubes. I’d also like my poetry to appear as small neon signs in dark alleyways.

Why do you think a day dedicated to poetry, in all its forms, still matters now?

It matters more than ever in this climate of uncertainty. Poems offer windows into other realms. Jean Cocteau said it best: “Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.”

What threads or obsessions run through your shortlisted collection, and did anything surprise you as the work came together?

The main threads in Slender Volumes are: sketches from life, autobiographical accounts, historical fragments, fables and surrealist stories. As I wrote one poem a day for this collection of 300 poems, I was continually being surprised.

Tell us about a poem, poet, or line that’s currently living in your head - and why it resonates with you.

There’s a line by Walter Benjamin that is very resonant for me: “We are always on the mysterious side of the mysterious.” I like to visit that place when I write.

What does it mean to have your collection recognised in this way - and what do you hope readers might take from it?

The recognition is great because more copies of the book are selling. And I’m very happy for my publishers, Spoor Books, especially as Slender Volumes is their first publication. I hope that the readers will be “entertained” while reading this collection. Not the superficial meaning of “entertain” but going back to its root meaning of “to hold together”. So, reader and writer being held together via an ever-changing text.