ELI KENT is a 21-year-old writer from Wellington. His first full-length play Rubber Turkey was performed at BATS and Auckland’s The Basement as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival 2008 and went on to win him the Peter Harcourt Award for Outstanding New Playwright of the Year at the 2008 Chapman Tripp Theatre awards. His third play The Intricate Art of Actually Caring (performed in his bedroom) won “Best Theatre” in the NZ Fringe Festival 2009 and will tour nationally in 2010. His new work Bedlam opens at the Basement Theatre at Toi Whakaari on September 1.


Pointless Words

She said he needn’t use so many pointless words in his poetry

He wrote

Blah blah blah blah
Blah blah
Blah blah blah
Blah

She said he needn’t get smart

He wrote

But isn’t that what school is for?

She kept him in at lunch

He wrote

I will not be a nuisance in class
I will not be a nuisance in class
I will not be a nuisance in class
I will not be a nuisance in class
I will not be a nuisance in class


slag

She said “What’s this?”

He wrote it again, more clearly, and added a defiant underline just in case she didn’t get the picture

She kept him in after school

Like the pioneering rebel that he was he wrote

Fuck you Fuck you Fuck you
Fuck you Fuck you Fuck you
Fuck you Fuck you Fuck you
Fuck you Fuck you Fuck you

So she suspended him

And just like that the conflict was resolved

He was allowed to watch T.V for the rest of week

She was allowed to think she’d won


Seagulls

courtney place is soaked and tired
like my dad when he’s been out early fishing in the rain
matt’s whiskey evaporates before it hits my tongue
trashed i aim home indirectly leaking through my shoes
and her lips cushion me when I touch base
she has seagulls up her nostrils that squeak
with each surge of her sleeping breath
it’s not love
but it’s a deep convenience
our comfort twist
brings with it this
foreign feeling that I’m changing the sheets for a reason