bad apple / spoiled fruit
These roots are almost four years deep
239 strong and growing into spring
the winter was rough
so we huddled together
sowing seeds sick of a narrative
watered (down) by public opinion
on the weight of what we have to say
of our right to live
to love and be loved
like any good garden we said
fuck it
if we want it done right
we have to do it ourselves
*
sweeter in chorus
we became an orchard
harmonised by the thought
that we can tell our own stories
write our own yearning
reflect on our own mistakes
record our own histories
and uplift each other toward
the sun
*
now we have fallen from the tree
tumbled out from the shade
let time ferment our sugars
flesh caving in
rot metastasising
then recycling
feeding the future
sowing more seeds
because what else
do bad apples become
but spoiled fruit?
I’ve made a few updates, but I first wrote this poem just over two years ago for the launch of Spoiled Fruit: Queer Poetry from Aotearoa, which I coedited with Amber Esau and which features many of the readers and audience members here today.
I couldn’t have imagined in May of 2022, when bad apple first launched, that we’d ever get to the point of publishing a book. Yet here we are, almost four years later, having now published four books (with at least two more on the way this year). Not to mention one longlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
While I am incredibly proud of how bad apple has evolved over the years and how it planted the seed for Āporo Press, in this final entry to the website, I’d like to honour the juiciest little online LGBTQIA+ arts and culture journal in Aotearoa.
For those who aren’t in the know on the bad apple lore, it started from some disgruntled queers who were sick of mainstream and local ‘gay’ media’s reporting of the trans community. Those frustrated individuals built a community on a Discord channel with the intention of creating a space for better representation and for queer writers to create the representation they saw lacking elsewhere.
This was led by Mari Toledo and gifted the name bad apple by Che, aka @hotandsad, but eventually the editorial torch was handed over to me. With the combined efforts of Sloane Hong, Iris Darcy, and kī anthony, we went live as badapple.gay on May 9, 2022.
Since then, we have published (as of today) 249 different queer writers and artists for a total of 532 pieces that are currently live on the website. If you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like to run through a list of all the collections, events and collaborations of the last four years. It feels important to recognise all the work we have achieved together, especially as so many of you reading this have contributed in one way or another.
2022 & 2023
- ‘blow’, our very first online collection in 2022
- The ‘Summer Essay Series’ of 2022 and 2023
- ‘bad pumpkin’, our 2022 Halloween collection
- For Auckland Pride 2023, we partnered with The Pantograph Punch, Theatrescenes, and Rat World to review shows in the festival in three parts
- The ‘Release’ collection, which also became our first event at Basement Theatre in the bar!
- For National Poetry Day 2023, we had an online collection and live events for ‘FRAMED!’, which established our relationship with Samoa House Library and Enjoy Contemporary Art Space in Wellington.
- ‘queer and voting 2023’, a political collection led by Francis Aschoff
- On 9 November 2023, we launched Spoiled Fruit: Queer Poetry from Aotearoa at the Verb Readers and Writers Festival.
- We then also launched Spoiled Fruit in Tāmaki Makaurau at Samoa House Library
- In late 2023, we collaborated with Wellington Access Radio to record poems from local poets to play as part of their programming
2024
- For Auckland Pride 2024, we…
- Collaborated with Auckland Council Libraries and Pride Fest Out West to create five free bookmarks featuring art and poetry by local creatives
- I was on a panel for Samesame But Different, talking about publishing and bad apple
- Mary Mosteller and I held a five-night run of poetry shows featuring 25 queer Auckland poets aptly titled ‘The Showcase’, upstairs in the Studio at Basement Theatre
- For Wellington Pride 2024, Francis Aschoff led ‘Prism Poetry’ at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space
- Marrow & Other Stories by Sloane Hong became our second book, published in May
- In June, we released our first collaboration with Sybs Candles, RIPE
- We then returned to Basement Theatre in July for Matariki 2024, with the future ANCESTORS collection and showcase, focusing on queer Māori and Pasifika
- Also in July, we were featured at Mount Albert Library’s edition of the 2024 Winter Poetry Series
- In the same period, we partnered with Gus Fisher Galleries to create A Blind Kind of Violence, a response zine to the Derek Jarman exhibition, and held an event to launch it
- I then flew down to take part in Small Press Fest in Ōtepōti and the panel event 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑷𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑩𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑺𝒎𝒂𝒍𝒍
- On route back to Auckland, I stopped in Wellington for our National Poetry Day 2024 offering ‘the bad apple mixtape’ at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space with special guest and poet laureate of the time, Chris Tse
- In November, I was back in Wellington again for Verb Readers and Writers Festival, where we staged another future ANCESTORS kōrero
- Skip ahead a little bit, and we finished the year with our first merch drop of ‘fruit’ t-shirts and our online collection ‘adjectives.’
- Before the year was out, we had to sneak one more Sybs Candles collab in—FRUIT ROT
2025
- We published the Fruit Basket zine in January
- For Auckland Pride 2025
- We partnered with the Auckland Central City Library during Pride for an Amy Marguerite author talk
- Also produced another round of Pride bookmarks with the libraries
- I started the local loser podcast in April, expanding the media empire
- In May, we published our first solo poetry collection, Nicola Andrews’s Overseas Experience
- We launched our first online collection for international queer artists and writers, ‘bad apple WORLD TOUR’, in June
- Then F.O.L.A reached out to partner with us on reviewing a series of their 2025 shows in ‘THE F.O.L.A FOMO FEED’
- Claudia Jardine came to Tāmaki in July, and we partnered on Throwing Pains, a one-night show upstairs with Amber Esau and Sophie van Waardenberg
- Also in July, we published urban whakapapa, Asians in Art Volume 1 and a print version of future ANCESTORS for Auckland Zinefest
- Finishing off the year, we published Hoods Landing by Laura Vincent in October and launched it in Wellington at Unity Books and in Auckland at Silo Theatre in November
2026
- Before closing for good, we finished off with the ‘past, present, future’ collection online and…
- Held our final live event, LAST HARVEST.
Reflecting on all of that is quite overwhelming, especially considering most of it was done for free, with predominantly volunteer involvement from our community, because that’s exactly what this is—a community we have built. I know, undoubtedly, that my life has been fundamentally changed because of bad apple. That’s easy to see in a professional sense, as it has opened doors for me that I think would’ve remained closed otherwise, but my personal life has also benefited immeasurably.
I have met dozens of contributors and collaborators in my time as editor, and I’m deeply grateful to call many of them close friends, mentors, and even family. And I know I am not alone, the imprint bad apple has had on many of our lives will be felt far into the future. Although it joins several other spaces for queer creativity that have closed in the last few years, I hope this ‘lack’ spurs young, scrappy individuals to carve out their own space.
I’d like to extend an embarrassingly sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed to bad apple in one way or another. Whether that’s submitting your writing, reviewing for us, attending events, collaborating, sharing our posts online, donating money, or even just simply reading what we publish. It never could have existed without you.
Let the fruit puns haunt me eternally. With love.
Damien Levi
bad apple Lead Editor
