Auckland housing crisis poem moves from page to posters

An Auckland poet’s take on the challenges of buying a house in Auckland is shifting from the page to posters.

Tourette’s '15 easy steps to buying a house in Auckland' has been converted into 20 posters, by Phantom Billstickers, to be put up this week, after it went viral online.

Dominic Hoey, the man behind Tourettes, was surprised with the response to his poem.

“I hadn’t put that much time into it, compared with the others. I didn’t really expect that much.”

“I sort of put it up [onto Facebook] as an afterthought,” said Mr Hoey.

Mr Hoey opens his poem with the line: “cut down on eating out/ cancel the Sky subscription.”

The poem goes on to recommend holidaying in Hamilton, smoking meth and waiting until you retire before having children.

Poetry Posters is an initiative by Auckland-based poster company, Phantom Billstickers, to put up poems by New Zealand and American poets on the streets as A1 posters.

The initiative features a variety of poets including James K. Baxter, Sam Hunt and Selina Tusitala Marsh.

Miss Juretich, who takes care of Poetry Posters, told Te Waha Nui that Tourettes’ poem will go up in the Auckland CBD this week.

Mr Hoey welcomed the move.

“It’s such an amazing thing Phantom does, especially as poetry is one of those art forms which everyone loves the idea of, but the reality is people getting behind it are a bit reluctant.”

Mr Hoey is also considering alternative avenues for his first novel, to be published later this year, to get across to his readership.

“I’m definitely thinking about having parts of it posted on the street and trying to get attention that way.

“As another art form, novels are kind of dying and you have to think of interesting ways to promote it, get it out there.”

Mr Hoey has published about a variety of topics, with poems about the TPPA and WINZ also going viral online.

“Most of the stuff I’m writing now is increasingly more and more political, because of the critical situation in this country. It almost seems irresponsible or lazy not to make political content,” said Mr Hoey.

Follow Phantom Billstickers’ Twitter to find out locations of the poem.