In 2001, poet and professor Bill Manhire of the International Institute of Modern Letters founded Best New Zealand Poems.
[1] The first annual editor, Iain Sharp, wrote in his introduction to the 2001 selection that the site's approach was inspired by The Best American Poetry series.
He also noted that the poems must have been published that year either in magazines or books, and that in order to qualify as New Zealand poetry, a "steady association with the country is sufficient".
[2] Due to Manhire's association with the anthology and role as series editor, his own poems were originally ineligible for inclusion.
[4] In 2003, Shelley Howells, a columnist for The New Zealand Herald, noted the features on the website, including links to publishers, New Zealand literary sites, poet biographies, and poets' comments on their work, provide a "more bang for your verse' approach" that is "more satisfying than simply reading a poem on a page".
[5] In 2007, Manhire noted that most of the website's viewers were from overseas, and that the online publication allowed the anthology to break "through the distribution barrier which prevents New Zealand poetry from reaching an international audience".
[6] In 2011, Te Herenga Waka University Press published The Best of Best New Zealand Poems, an anthology edited by Bill Manhire and Damien Wilkins.
"[2] This year's editor, Elizabeth Smither, recalled what Allen Curnow, a New Zealand poet who died in 2001, said about "the visceral nature of true poetry.
Although Auden said "Poetry makes nothing happen," Neale said a poem can lend support to a political cause powered by other means.
[3] The editors for 2006 were literary couple Anne Kennedy and Robert Sulivan, both of whom were listed in the previous year's selection.
[13] [1] The fact that both poets reside in Honolulu, and had to rely in part on "the help of the Institute of Modern Letters team who sent us care packages from home" may account for this curious distribution.
In her introduction, Green gave a list of "a simultaneous cluster of best poems" by these poets: Saradha Koirala Erin Scudder, Harry Ricketts, Ashleigh Young, Helen Rickerby, Tusiata Avia, Sue Wootton, Marty Smith, S. K. Johnson, Kay McKenzie Cooke, David Howard, Jennifer Compton, Wystan Curnow, Richard von Sturmer, Sue Reidy, Charlotte Simmons, Rae Varcoe, Fiona Kidman, Jack Ross, Airini Beautrais, Amy Brown, Katherine Liddy, Thérèse Lloyd, and Scott Kendrick.
[19][20] Marsh said she wanted "to be able to map the latest constellation of Aotearoa's poetry stars and navigate the various poetic journeys being offered from a particular time and place"; the collection included "Pākaitore" by Airini Beautrais about the 1995 protest at Moutoa Gardens.