HOLLY ROWSELL
Extension Exercise
after Hannah Mettner
If you finish with time to spare, try one of these extension exercises —
1. Unpack whether Holly was a reliable narrator. Why do you think this?
2. Write a letter from Holly’s point of view (without the influence of her father’s opinion).
3. Talk about the significance of Holly’s 16th birthday party.
4. Why do you think listening to The Flaming Lips makes Holly sad?
5. Brainstorm three things that might make Holly happier. Be realistic.
6. Do you think Holly deserved it? Elaborate.
From: Jobs
To: JOBS
an erasure poem of an email Steve Jobs sent to himself one year prior to his death
I grow little the little I do grow
did not breed perfect seeds
I do not own
a language did not invent or
discover mathematics
I am laws I did not conceive
and do not enforce
I did not create myself
I need
to survive
I did not invent the
program or the
work
I am
totally dependent on being.
Sent from my iPad
sweethearts
thirteen when we bonded over louis armstrong
at that bus stop on the seemingly everlong
expanse of the pakuranga highway. the tarmac
i remember was darker, still freshly black back
when we would don odd socks as an act of radical
queerness — right foot covered in some cartoon sea animal
and the left a kind of blushing pink. they’d stick out of shoes
we’d now think uncool that would carry us to pews
in the old school hall for wednesday assemblies
where you’d reach to pick up the hands i’d intently
be peeling skin from — an anxious habit i still haven’t kicked
and five years on it must be a kilogram of flesh i’ve picked
clean off without your loyal interception. but it always grows
back. by now the epidermis of my fingers is composed
of cells you’ve never held and you probably won’t catch
me on campus wearing two socks that don’t match
one another but i’ll always listen to satchmo
and that road back home still feels endless.
Holly Rowsell (she/her) is a philosophy and literature student living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She is a lover of cherries and an involuntary poet. She has founded two poetry journals: Nine Lives, which launched in August 2025, and The Free Body Problem, which launched in September 2025. You can find the issues via Instagram —@ninelivesjournal & @thefreebodyproblem. You can read Holly’s poetry in Catalyst, Sweet Mammalian, and Overcom, among other Aotearoa journals.