Airini Beautrais


Airini Beautrais is a poet from New Zealand.

Background

Beautrais was born in 1982 grew up in Auckland and Whanganui. She studied creative writing and ecological science at the Victoria University of Wellington. In 2016 she received her PhD in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters.
Beautrais currently lives in Whanganui.

Works

Beautrais's writing draws on her personal experiences, and is often set in her hometown of Whanganui.
Beautrais has published four collections of poetry with Victoria University Press: Secret Heart ; Western Line ; Dear Neil Roberts ; and Flow: Whanganui River Poems.
She has been published in the Best New Zealand Poems series and literary journals, including Overland, and Penduline.

Awards

Beautrais's first collection of poetry, Secret Heart, was awarded the NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book of Poetry at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
Dear Neil Roberts was longlisted in the poetry category of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Award.
In 2016 she was shortlisted for the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize.
Beautrais won the 2016 Landfall Essay Competition.