Spreading the joy of words

Poet and children's author Paula Green has produced two new books while coping with a rare blood cancer, and now a bone marrow transplant. 

- LINDA HERRICK

Under normal conditions, West Auckland writer, poet and blogger extraordinaire Paula Green would be travelling around the country right now introducing her two new books to her most ardent fans: schoolchildren.

Roar Squeak Purr: A New Zealand Treasury of Animal Poems, edited by Green, is a handsome, whimsical illustrated collection of poetry by children and notable "grown-up" writers, including its editor, which was published this month.

The other book, also out now, is Little Tales of Hedgehog and Goat, an illustrated story about adventure and friendship aimed at readers aged six and over with this new book and I felt like I was launching it with the nurses," she says.

"They got to see it and engage with it." Little tales of The format of a novel is a first for Green, who received the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry in 2017, the same year she was made a member of the NZ Order of Merit for services as a poet and to literature.

Green, 67, moved into Motutapu on June 11, and returned to her home in Te Henga/Bethells Beach on Auckland's west coast five weeks and three days later. She is now in cautious recovery mode, returning to the hospital for day care at least once a week.

Paula Green Blustrated by Kimberly Andrews Hedgehog and Goat slipped into the world quietly. When Green received her advance copy, she was a long-stay patient in Auckland City Hospital's Motutapu Ward, part of its haematology and blood services, undergoing a bone marrow transplant to treat myelofibrosis, a variant of blood cancer.

"I was sitting in the hospital by myself She must live in neartotal isolation until the end of the year, cared for by her partner, artist Michael Hight, and their two adult daughters, Georgia and Estelle, who are all providing "terrific support", she says.