Pizza and poetry – two of humankind’s most vital inventions. Put them together, and not only do you have a perfect paring, but also the ingredients for Hell Pizza’s ‘Great NZ Book Trip,’ an initiative whereby the fine people at Hell organize Zoom sessions for schools with Aotearoa’s leading literary lights.

This week’s session featured poet, academic and Aotearoa’s Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh, who read her award-winning ‘Mophead Tu: The Queen’s Poem’ to an enraptured audience of Columba College Year 9 English students, as well as akonga from primary, intermediate and secondary schools from around the motu.

Following her vibrant performance, she then fielded questions and offered advice for aspiring writers. Among her key messages were “mistakes are made for making,” the fact that much of her inspiration springs from the fact that “I wanted to tell my story ‘cos I hadn’t read it” (‘Tusitala’ is Samoan for ‘storyteller’), and that young writers should write regularly with “no self-censoring…casting your nets far and wide,” noting that “if you don’t cast your net, you won’t catch any fish.” It was an utter delight to have her beamed into Columba College classrooms.