To write poetry in New Zealand as a Pacific migrant is an act of wayfinding, a creative process of discovery and negotiation between cultural spaces. This collection of 137 poems by 89 Aotearoa-based Pacific poets explores that navigation.This significant collection ranges from long-established voices such as Albert Wendt, Selina Tusitala Marsh and David Eggleton and the powerful newer voices of poets such as Tusiata Avia, Courtney Sina Meredith, Karlo Mila and Grace Iwashita-Taylor to new and emerging voices. Deep and rich, like Moana Oceania itself, it shows Pasifika poetry to be in a constant state of 'old and new', of haharagi and lelea' mafua, a lively and evolving continuum.
Author Biography:
David Eggleton is of Rotuman, Tongan and Palagi descent. He lives in Ōtepoti
Dunedin, where he is an editor, poet and writer, as well as a reviewer and critic
whose articles, reviews, profiles and essays have appeared in the Listener, Art
New Zealand, New Zealand Books, Art News, Metro, Architecture New Zealand,
Urbis, Landfall, The Spinoff, Pantograph Punch and elsewhere.
Vaughan Rapatahana is widely published across several genres in both his
main languages, te reo Māori and English, and his work has been translated into
Bahasa Malaysia, Italian, French, Mandarin, Romanian and Spanish. He is also
a poet, with seven collections published variously in Hong Kong SAR, Macau,
Philippines, USA, England, France, India and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Mere Taito is a poet, flash fiction writer and an interdisciplinary creative
practice scholar who lives in Kirikiriroa Hamilton. She is originally from the
island of Rotuma in Fiji and has lived in New Zealand for the past 15 years.
Mere’s work has been published widely in Fiji and Aotearoa. She won a
University of Waikato Doctoral Scholarship 2021 and has a fulltime creative
practice-based doctoral study on bilingual Rotuman-English poetry.
