Puna Wai Korero: An Anthology of Maori Poetry in English

From revered, established writers as well as exciting new voices, the poems in Puna Wai Korero offer a broad picture of Maori poetry in English. The voices are many and diverse: confident, angry, traditional, respectful, experimental, despairing, and full of hope, expressing a range of poetic techniques and the full scope of what it is to be Maori. There are poems from all walks of life and modes of writing: laments for koro and hopes for mokopuna, celebrations of the land and anger at its abuse, retellings of myth and reclamations of history. Puna Wai Korero collects work from the many iwi and hapu of Aotearoa as well as Maori living in Australia and around the world, featuring the work of Hone Tuwhare, J. C. Sturm, Trixie Te Arama Menzies, Keri Hulme, Apirana Taylor, Roma Potiki, Hinemoana Baker, Tracey Tawhiao and others - as well as writers better known for forms other than poetry such as Witi Ihimaera, Paula Morris, and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku.

Reina Whaitiri is of Maori and Pakeha descent, and is a teacher, researcher, and editor of Maori, Pacific and indigenous literature. She taught English literature at the Universities of Auckland and Hawai’i, and coordinated the former’s Tertiary Education Foundation Programme. She has coedited three anthologies, Homeland: New Writing from America, the Pacific, and Asia, Mauri Ola, and Whetu Moana. Robert Sullivan is a poet of Ngapuhi/Irish descent, and is the author of a number of books of poetry, a graphic novel, and a prize-winning book of Maori legends for children. He coedited Mauri Ola, and Whetu Moana. He is a former literary fellow at the University of Auckland and a former distinguished visiting writer at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa, where he taught creative writing. He now heads the creative writing program at Manukau Institute of Technology in Auckland.