How Did I Get Here: Soliloquies Of Youth

In January 2020 poet Ben Brown took a box of biros, an A4 ream of paper and a question to 28 YPs – young people – living in Te Puna Wai ō Tuhinapo, the Oranga Tamariki youth justice residence next door to Rolleston Prison, south-west of Christchurch.

The question was: ‘How the fuck did I get here?’ Over four days of kōrero and collaboration, tautoko and awhi, the young men aged 13–18 wrote their answers as poems, which have been collected in a book, with illustrations by two of the participants.