“Anticipation” By Piet Nieuwland

“Anticipation”

By Piet Nieuwland

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cyberwit.net
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 14, 2026
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 71 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9363549038
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9363549036
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.1 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.18 x 8.5 inches

Review by LB Sedlacek

Piet Nieuwland is a New Zealand poet with work appearing in print and online journals worldwide. He has also had several solo art exhibitions where painting and drawing were combined with poetry. Plus, he trained as a forester and later worked as a conservation strategist for Te Papa Atawhai/ Department of Conservation. 

His new poetry book emerges from his ecological, writing and artistic experiences to shape a collection that reveals a poet who deeply invests himself within his work. Nieuwland creates motion inside landscape and environment, emotions and reality evolving into a collection that is a unique language in and of itself.

His poems create an imagery of lyricism. His writing surges, drifts and moves while inhabiting perception invoking an eye for visualization.

Concerns for the environment saturate poems bringing to light themes of water quality, forest destruction and the interconnection of all life. It is not decorative poetry, but rather a foundation for what the poet is trying to say.

This overall quality gives the book texture, clarity and complexity. Writing in a variety of styles, Nieuwland embraces a layering of words and verse that seamlessly interact into each poem presented in the book.

From the poem “Like wide water”

 “With the insinuations of limbs and colors of desire, 

ephemeral blues and braided beauties

in the laughing sky, the soft call of spotted doves in the café 

beside the bluish purple

lazy sea, a red and yellow flag”

In this poem, the imagery is lush and breathtaking. Another line from the poem is

“the succulent satisfaction of ripening plums.” Elsewhere in the same poem, the landscape becomes “kaleidoscopic” which seems to shimmer with perception. Lines reveal Nieuwland’s gift for gathering textures, colors, the senses, unease, and beauty into his moving poem.

The title of Nieuwland’s book suggests an expectancy of sorts. In his poems, something is always arriving whether it be revelation, desire, grief or transformation. He succeeds in creating an image filled cumulative atmosphere throughout the book which creates an overall profound effect for the reader.

These poems are at once absorbing but informative. A human consciousness persists circulating throughout the book.

From the poem “Doing a hard restart”

“As the hours of night fall like

fading sirens barking footsteps dogs tires on gravel helicopters

slamming emergency screen doors chatter in another hiss of

electric car language with huddles under bridges trucks changing

in bomb craters moreporks gentle gear summons a stare of cats

aero-planes delayed accelerating motorbikes a wailing grief a tired

child moths tapping on hungry cry windows explode trilling

crickets bomb stridulating cicada head wound weed eaters missile

leaf blowers strike the soft amputation stroke of lawnmower doves”

“Anticipation” ultimately feels like a collection that is animated by an awareness of the world. It is a book of thresholds blending curiosity, nature, place, country, and moments into something both beautiful and perceptive all at once.

~LB Sedlacek is the author of several books of poetry including “Unresponsive Sky,” “The Poet Next Door,” “Simultaneous Submissions,” “I’m No Robot,” and “Ghost Policy.”  Her poem novel is “The Blue Eyed Side.”