Diving In
Whether she’s gliding through the sunlit ladies’ pond at Hampstead Heath, being thrashed about in the bracing waves of Wellington’s Seatoun Beach, or basking in the turquoise calm of the capital’s Oriental Bay, the city gleaming behind her, Nina Mingya Powles feels braver in water than on land. Stronger, emotionally and physically. “I remember as a teenager feeling so exposed and awkward standing by the side of the pool in my togs,” she recalls. “But the moment I got in, I felt at home.”
Themes of home, and where a person belongs, run through much of Powles’ work and have been central questions in her life. The 28-year-old poet and essayist, whose work has both won and been nominated for a slew of prizes here and overseas, including the prestigious Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, was born in Wellington but has spent a life never quite settled, living for periods of time in cities all over the world. The daughter of United Nations diplomats, Powles’ family moved to Shanghai when she was five. She returned to New Zealand
