Noho Mai – Given Poems 2021

Ngā mihi ki a koutou for sending your poems with the five words from the poetry film NOHO MAI. We received 177 poems and have chosen 45 to publish here on Given Words. The winning poems have been selected by Mikaela Nyman, Michael Todd and Charles Olsen, while Peta-Maria Tunui provided advice on poems in te reo Māori, and we’d like to open with Peta-Maria’s reflections on the use of te reo in many of the entries:

‘In poetry we experiment with words, sounds, double meanings. We take a turn of phrase and embed meaning that can be felt beyond the ability to express it in words, just as a second language gifts the ability to express concepts and depths that don’t exist in the first. How powerful then, to use these two tools in cohesion to explore depth and meaning. Learning a second language, especially one that has been traumatically removed from your whakapapa by colonisation is hard. Playing with and enjoying language is an important part of the learning, development and healing journey. The inclusion of te reo across the entries reflected a growing confidence to engage with te reo in new ways and spaces. It was particularly encouraging to receive a number of entries completely written in te reo. I hope this experience inspires writers to continue to explore the intersection between their poetic expression and te reo Māori.

‘I have heard mātauranga Māori described as the ability to look to the taiao (natural world) to recognise the signs, patterns and to understand the lessons and guidance to be received in our own contexts. There were beautiful examples of this woven through the entries, reflecting on parallels drawn from the wind, the night and the black-backed gull — both literal and metaphorical. There were many facets of reflection on the presence and connection to our ancestors, a concept which is front of mind in indigenous oratory, art and expression. These kupu opened up space to explore the layers contained within them and each entry brought fullness to this exploration by approaching from a new perspective, demonstrating the way in which mātauranga is a collective act.’

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Charles comments on behalf of the judges: Poems go beyond words, they connect places, ideas, impressions, traces of time and memory. Was it the film NOHO MAI that inspired the many references to the sea, or was it the black-backed gull/karoro? Has the pandemic brought thoughts of the fragility of life, or was it the words tūpuna/ancestor, hau/breath, or even pō/dusk? There were also light-hearted moments: kite-flying in Wellington, gulls pinching fish and chips, a poetry rendition in a Fifth Form English class. As always, it is a pleasure and privilege to compare notes and read the insights of the other judges, who this year are Mikaela Nyman and Michael Todd. I recommend reading our selection of poems first and then coming back here afterwards to compare notes!

Beginning with the under-16s, perhaps the most original karoro was a drawing in A Bridge of Smoke, a poem that traverses themes of culture, ethnicity and belonging, and opens with an evocative image as ‘my Năinai [Chinese for grandmother] burns red envelopes brimming with paper money’. Another evocative opening is that of The Hush, ‘They decided to harvest the light/Picked it through the ceilings/Of mouldy tents/And washed their faces in stars’. We are left wondering where the poem was set; are we in Aotearoa during land wars, or with refugees in a war-torn country? And are the ‘screams’ from soldiers or planes, or are they of gulls punctuating the hush? Both breath, ‘valued/More than any gold’ and the black-backed gulls that ‘mimic the planes’, were creative uses of these words. Mikaela commented, ‘this poem both moves and troubles me. The poet has managed to bring in an outside world and, in doing so, enlarged the world of the poem too.’ We could also mention the opening of The Wings of Dusk where ‘The karoro wheels high above the harbour/the cloak of dusk tied to its feet/slowly dragging the stars into the sky./It soars on the hau of our ancestors.’ Or the way the five words interlaced with such a personal poem as October, where the karoro marks a moment in time and the confusion, the things left unsaid, regrets and compassion, have the feel of a secret whispered into the air. In the end it was Eventide which caught our imaginations, although we all had different readings of the first lines, Michael describing how the ‘familiar image of a moth throwing itself at a porch light is made new through an almost baroque elevation (alabaster and indigo making me think of fine palaces and lavish clothes)’, while I associated ‘alabaster moths’ with the idea of white tombstones, and a dying breath as they ‘flutter on indigo shadows of dusk’. We were impressed by the physicality: ‘I press my toes into the cold sand’ and the ‘inbreath and outbreath of the sea’, which Mikaela pointed out is mimicked in the jagged line-lengths of the poem itself. These make the later ‘breaths drowned in risen tides’ all the more visceral. Sea ripples through the poem, from the title, Eventide, through ‘moored’ or ‘spills’, and even the ‘tips of white against the black’ contains a visual analogy with waves. It could be read as a Covid-19 death but equally, it could be from another time; in my case the death of a grandparent from emphysema years ago, far away on the opposite side of the world. The closing simile of the karoro contrasts beautifully with the delicate moths of the opening line.

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Turning to the poems from adults, the pandemic is also present in Contact Tracing, a powerful short poem that traces the feeling of isolation, and Mikaela highlighted the original use of the given words in ‘Dusk holds winter coast/Ancestors have nothing to say/Your troubles aren’t theirs’ and the opening ‘breath of the ocean’. The wonderfully titled in the sky burns a garden/ahi invites us in to a personal history with the conversational ‘Really the loss began…’ which has a strange ring to it because, as Michael says, ‘the family history mapping is all about unions, about coming together rather than losing.’ It is a beautiful and honest picture of a koro by their mokopuna, acknowledging the ruptures in the family, ‘An ache in every chop of the axe./In every cry karoro trail through a breaking sky, grief.’ Nevertheless, the unseen presence of ngā tūpuna runs through the poem in ‘Yet there’s fire. Ahi.’ or ‘Pō. Dusk. An ashen sky/raises unseen stars.’ A sense of alienation is also the subject of Fold with ‘My roots don’t feel like roots at all/but barbs in a feather’, and we can feel this search for belonging as we travel from ‘an origami bird’ to ‘the Karoro’ to the ‘ancient Pouākai’. One poem that stood out for us was Hiki te hoe. As Mikaela said, ‘Fabulous rhythm and sound with the repetition of the paddling of the canoe, you want to chant it out loud. It feels like you are literally in “The pull/The row/The drag/The flow”’. Michael commented ‘I was so immersed in the experience of this meditative poem that I barely registered the use of the five words — it felt natural.’ It has a beautiful sense of homecoming and connection with the three hearts: ‘my puku-heart’, ‘head-heart’, and ‘heart-heart’. The poem we were finally drawn to was After visiting the IC ward. As Mikaela said ‘It has grown on me and stayed with me. It is much more subtle than the title implies, leaving space for interpretation. It is a philosophical and meditative poem, yet at the same time grounded in specific detail (“your bed occupying/a place between dark and light”, “pin feathers of an albatross wing/tipped slightly”)’. The poem is also full of sea birds, tern, black-backed gulls, albatross, and references to the sea. I read the final part ‘flying in the mind’ as an internal dream where the albatross represents the impossible journey of the spirit (‘infinite nautical miles’) while the ‘driftwood’ is carried home by the waves to a place of belonging. The idea of being ‘between two worlds’ runs throughout the poem and despite this, there remains hope with the ‘flicker of light’ and ‘another chance to keep going’.

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We are delighted to announce the winning poets. The winner of Best Poem is Pat White for his poem After visiting the IC ward, and the winner of the Under-16 category is Savarna Yang for her poem Eventide. We would also like to award a Special Mention to Aine Whelan-Kopa for her poem Hiki te hoe. They will receive books courtesy of Mākaro Press and The Cuba Press. Congratulations to all three from Given Words, Mākaro Press and The Cuba Press.

Below are the winning poems and the Special Mention poem. We also invite you to read our selection of the rest of the poems from adults here and from under-16s here. All entries had to include the following five words in either te reo Māori or English, or a mixture of the two: pō/dusk, hau/breath, tūpuna/ancestors, hiki/raise, and karoro/black-backed gull.

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After visiting the IC ward

You might think at dusk
that a black-backed gull, and the terns
would be flying for the rookery.
The fishing folk with an empty basket
might trudge homeward, instead of
standing longer on those moving dunes
dividing shore between offshore tūpuna
and inland ancestors, here sea birds
just like words tie the waves’ surge
to lives between two worlds.

Another chance to keep going as if
every breath matters, coming to
rattling rest, as waves do over shell
and pebbles shifting over and over
the planet’s body, one grain of sand
at a time. Your bed occupying
a place between light and dark
the soul poised to raise a voice
in praise of one more day
giving thanks, flying in the mind
to where uplift drafts will raise
pin feathers of an albatross wing
tipped slightly to infinite nautical miles
over the breaker’s lip, reflecting
water movement into light carrying
driftwood to be dragged home.
for burning like the flicker of
life burning in your chest.

Pat White
Canterbury

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Eventide

alabaster moths flutter
on indigo shadows of dusk
I press my toes into cold sand,
listen to the inbreath and outbreath of sea
and I remember my tupuna tāne,
how he died moored to a ventilator,
breaths drowned in risen tides
far from his whānau

the moon spills silver over ocean ripples
I raise my face to the sky
through a blur of tears
the first stars form an outline of wings,
tips of white against the black
I imagine my tupuna
flies free as a karoro

Savarna Yang, aged 13
Otepoti, Dunedin

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Hiki te hoe

I got goosebumps today
When Tāwhiri breathed
And I heard the words
When I opened my heart
To tūpuna
They whispered
Hoea te waka
Hoea te waka
Hoea te waka
Like a chorus
And on the beat
It hurt like hope
But felt like home
I’m sorry I ever told them to go
Hoea te waka
Their words sing on
In my puku-heart
As wiriwiri
In my head-heart
Sways the pūriri
In my heart-heart
There's aroha
And that's everything
It pumps my veins
Out of and into
The pull
The row
The drag
The flow
Hiki te hoe
Hoea te waka
I’m moving on
Out of te pō
Upon
Cool waters misty
Like a lake before dawn
Hoea te waka
To where karoro flies
Hoea te waka
To where the green flash glows
Hoea te waka
To where the four winds blow
Ngā hau
Hoea te waka
Along the long awa
Guided by whispers
And one hundred tuna
Black and blue
Hoea te waka
By starlight
To sunlight
With Hine ā Maru
And you

Aine Whelan-Kopa
Tāmaki Makaurau

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About the Poets

Pat White lives just out of Fairlie in the South Island of Aotearoa/New Zealand. There he works as a writer and painter, with his wife Catherine, a musician and painter. He has published a number of volumes of prose and poetry since the 1970s, including; How the Land Lies, (VUP 2010) prose memoir essays, Watching for the wingbeat; new and selected poems (Cold Hub Press 2018). He was editor of Rejoice Instead: Collected poems of Peter Hooper (Cold Hub Press, 2021).
His entry in Given Words honours the experience of a son who was in an Intensive Care Ward four years ago. Such events hone our appreciation of every breath, and the need of each of us to give thanks for the miracle of ordinariness that is daily life.
‘This afternoon the sun is shining, soon it will be time for a glass of red wine while sitting looking at the mountains to the west. Who knows a poem may be gifted on a gust of wind … if we sit quietly enough?’

Savarna Yang is thirteen years old, home-schools, and lives near Ōtepoti, Dunedin. You can often find her spinning and weaving wool from her pet sheep or baking mountains of cookies (especially over lockdown). She plays football for her local team but unfortunately they have lost every single game this season… She loves writing short stories and reviews.
Of the inspiration for her poem she says, ‘My grandparents live overseas, in Australia and China. I haven't seen them for a long time and maybe I won't get to see them again. In Aotearoa, we had an elderly friend nearby we loved like a grandparent. They died in hospital during lockdown when we could not visit to say goodbye.’

Aine Whelan-Kopa lives in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and grew up in very small rural, coastal towns in the Hokianga and Taranaki. She is of Ngāti Hine, Te Hikutu o Hokianga, Ngāpuhi and Irish descent. Being bi-racial has been challenging and impactful, writing and art are ways for Aine to express herself and explore her identity. The mix of te reo Maori and English in her poetry is a natural extension of the way she talks.
Aine is a student majoring in psychology and aims to use art therapy to help children affected by trauma. Whānau, whenua, atua and taiao are the cornerstones of her connection to Te Ao. Hiki Te Hoe was written as a note to self that in order to get to where you want to go you need to pick up the paddle and start to row.
Aine loves running and chocolate equally, because life is about balance.

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Continue reading our selection of poems from adults here and from under-16s here.

Noho Mai – Given Poems 2021 – Adults

Here is our selection of the entries for Best Poem for the Given Words competition for National Poetry Day 2021. They all had to to include the following five words in either te reo Māori or English, or a mixture of the two: pō/dusk, hau/breath, tūpuna/ancestors, hiki/raise, and karoro/black-backed gull.

You can read the winning poem After visiting the IC ward by Pat White and also Hiki te hoe by Aine Whelan-Kopa, which received a Special Mention, along with the judge's comments here and the poems from the Under-16s category here.

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Te Karoro

draped in dusk
in the kākahu of Hine-nui-te-pō
e rere ana te karoro
ia pō, ia pō

ka mahuta te marama
me ngā whetū
he tohu mā te iwi
koinei te wā ngū

but this young karoro
knows not where to go
so surrenders to Tāwhiri
te atua o te hau

and so the wind swirls
restless and without sight
as the breath of Tāwhirimātea
wrestles the moonlight

ki runga, ki raro
ki te matau, ki te mauī
the wind jostles the young karoro
no longer so carefree

but then comes a sound
or a knowing, perhaps
that the karoro alone
no longer it flaps

because there right beside it
below it, around it
are those who have loved us
still here, still in orbit

above the glittering city
below the risen moon
kept company by our tūpuna
their lament a stirring tune

there flies the karoro
comforted by those passed on
their protection over each of us
still lingers though they’re gone

time passes by
kua hīkina te pō
dreams fade away
and yet the karoro still soars

and now, bathed in dawn
farewelled by the morning star
e rere ana te karoro
ia rā, ia rā

Rachel Farrington
Te Whanganui-a-Tara

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in the sky burns a garden/ahi
‘He who loses his language loses his world.’ Iain Chrichton Smith/Iain Mac a’Ghobhainn

Really the loss began when Motoitoi married Dallas
and her daughters married Pākehā men
and then when my grandfather’s parents,
the son and daughter of two sisters, married,
sealing the rift.

In every memory, fear. An ache in every chop of the axe.
In every cry karoro trail through a breaking sky, grief.
Yet there’s fire. Ahi. Sparks that breathe in smouldering ash.
The music of stars. The breath of tūpuna. Hau.
Tūpuna made dumb when my grandfather pulled away

from his grandmother when meeting her
for the first time, at a railway station.
He remembered the iron monster steam train
and was scared of how old and dark
his grandmother, how strange the black shawl

she wore over her head. Black iron. Black smoke.
Black shawl. Pō. Dusk. An ashen sky
raises unseen stars. Someone chops wood into kindling
— a tradition as old as the ancestors, those who refuse
to speak to me because of my grandfather

with his Māori nose and freckled skin I loved — his hands,
his face, his short, brown roundness, his shiny
acorn-coloured head often topped with a homberg,
the kind of hat favoured by Frank Sinatra
and American gangsters.

Kay McKenzie Cooke
Ōtepoti, Dunedin

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Te Rapu

Ka kitea te Karoro i runga i nga kapua
e tioro ana ia ki te ao.
E hīkina ake ana te Karoro e ngā hau,
ka kapa iho ia, ka hiki anō.
E rapu ana ia he aha?
He rite tonu ia ki tātou katoa
e rapu mutanga kore ana ia i ōna tūpuna.

Awhea ka haere mai te pō,
ka taukapo ngā whetu i te rangi.


        The Search

        The black-backed gull may be seen above the clouds,
        shrieking at the world.
        The black-backed gull is lifted up by the winds,
        He falls, he rises again.
        What is he searching for?
        It is the same as us all,
        He searches endlessly for his ancestors.

        When night comes,
        The stars twinkle in the sky.

John Christeller
Te Papaioea

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Sea breeze

Dusk.
Think
of the climbing moon while the
sun slides to slumber,
the dark
that tip-toes towards you.

The black-backed gull
the hills sprinting towards him, while he
swoops in rushes of cold air, swirling
eddies in the sea of the sky with the stars
ruffling his feathers. He raises a crying
call to the moon
whose dim light gives a path
for him to fly.

I come
from the rolling green of Scotland, the brutal
winter of Europe, the singing
kererū of Aotearoa.
My ancestors’ breath tastes
of the sunrise atop the moors
in those green hills, it
turns to steam in the icy wind in Poland, it
carries the salt from the beach in Hokitika.

Amelia Fairlie
Christchurch

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Marathon

At low tide, kaimoana exposed atop
layers of ancestors, dogs flare across
the beach, dune to wave. No little blues here.
The fat things of this island have worn thin.
Give up, give up, a black-backed gull screeches
as I scratch kororā in heavy sand.
You haven’t the breath to raise this story.
Scavenge and predate, feast upon the living.
Forget the pungent work going down
in the crawlspace where dreams breed and hatch.
Catch the bus direct to the finish line.
But Kapiti, dusk whale, against her backdrop
of roses, resists summation. Little fires
for tears. If dark be tears which wish well,
come chicks, vivid in the space beneath.
Come the raft, returned before the storm.

Gillian Roach
Auckland

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Corrosion

Concrete grows on my lungs
engulfs my obliterated lust
like moss

my dweller albatross
will no longer raise sail
from the cracks

no karoro will emerge
from my ribcage
with a breath of fire

world has changed, I am told,
get used to the dusk
it will only get darker

I crawl to the cliffs
at the mouth of the ocean
to inhale seaspray

where remote fragrance
of my tūpuna
still lingers

Edna Heled
Auckland

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The time of lockdown

Cherry blossom in the warm sunshine
Tui sings spring melody loudly
Mask lady wanders around
Empty streets

Black–backed gulls play with ocean waves
Enjoy the silence of the world
Dusk come and go
Cars park in dust

The tantalizing aroma of roast permeate the air
Ghost moon hangs on the dark sky
Reminisce our ancestors’ lives
Nature and tranquility like now

Children bustle with laughers from afar
The sound of keyboards become the rhythm of family life
Daily news flood in my eyes and ears
I raise my arms to embrace hope

Take a breath
Spread the legs
I stay safe and well
Amid the nationwide lockdown

Michelle Zhao
Lower Hutt

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The Yellow Lilo

Who’d raise up tamped-down memories
– delinquent faces, the changing sheds,
foreign ancestor-parents –
if they kept strong-arming you
back to the black sinkhole,
dumping you in
                     so when I’m brittle
I remember the brother who,
alone, years before cell phones,
Kathmandu jackets
or the Ruapehu Alpine Rescue Organisation,
plummeted down a scree slope
one clear January day.
Dusk brought the killer chill.

* * *

       Come New Year, fishing-mad Dad would caravan us
to the same Birdling’s Flat outcrop
overlooking the deceptively
languid lake
I’ll fish the freezer full of red cod
if it costs me my last breath

A plastic bag each, billowing hard
behind us like drag parachutes,
brother’n’me would take off to crunch the shifting tide mark
wheeling like feeding-frenzy pigeons
scouring for stone jewels: glistening agate,
jasper or petrified wood.
       The time we came upon a black-backed gull
challenging a twice-its-size skua
to a dogfish carcass,
I knew he’d champion Gully.
It needn’t have been one of the huddled nesters
we startled on a cliff clamber

                     and it was him,
hollering and wind-milling
at the stupid sun-snoozing yellow lilo,
haring along the lake shore
beating me, just, to the tidal breach

Anita Arlov
Tamaki Makaurau, Auckland

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Ngā Korowai o aroha
Manaakitanga ki te karoro

Ki nga āhuatanga o te pō
Te hau o tō tātou tūpuna
Ka hiki i te ahoroa
ki te tino meto rawa atu i te karoro
Me kaua e korehāhā i rātou e!


        At dusk, the night fully unwound
        the breath of our ancestors calmed
        the apex of the moon raising
        the black-backed gull facing extinction
        They should will never be eradicated!

Trevor Landers
Taranaki

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Fold

I fold upon myself
like an origami bird
attempting to alter the shape
of my existence
fretting over finding a more
me-sized fit
determined to discover the source of my breath.

My roots don’t feel like roots at all
but barbs in a feather
more comfortable with floating
than being weighted to the land.

Like the Karoro that circle overhead
warning of the coming rain.
They cry and land on lamp posts in the city
familiar
but not belonging to this space.

That feels like my shape:
bold and conspicuous, more annoying than not
born here but not of here
my scream sounds the same as all the rest.
Still, I squark my best.

I wait to watch the new day
unfold itself from the ocean’s edge
and raise my wings
to catch the first sun rays
knowing my ancestors saw the same star.

And maybe they felt just as far away
as I do from myself sometimes
or as the past feels from us.
As far away as the Karoro feels from the ancient Poukai
or the morning light feels
from the dusk.

Sophie Procter
Auckland

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Whakapapa

At life’s pō, te hau is everything
           until it is no thing:
one with our tūpuna,
           tamariki of Raki and Papa;
one with the ever-changingness
           that transcends our prayers.
The rumblings of Rūaumoko
           turn us to life
raised from ashes
           like karoro crashing pipi on rocks;
rocks that have lived under the sea
           and towered above,
rocks that draw us
           to our tūpuna and moko.

David Griffin
Invercargill

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Contact Tracing

The breath of ocean
as cold as grave dirt.
Dusk holds winter coast.
Ancestors have nothing to say.
Your troubles aren’t theirs.
The karoro looks at you pass by,
raises a heavy wing, departs.
Lights snap on in sequence
above ghost streets.

Victor Billot
Dunedin

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Ceci N'est Pas Un Oiseau

Cometh the family with fish and chips,
cometh the black-backed gull.

It's pass the parcel at Plimmerton Beach,
but karoro's not invited. See him

poised on the picnic's edge,
hopes cruelly raised by the chip

that a child seems to lob his way,
invisible arc of nothing through air.

Don't hold your breath, karoro:
save it for dusk, when your wings elide

with the sky, and your flight,
like your ancestors', might best

be seen by a Binney equipped
with Hotere's infra-red eye.

Mark Edgecombe
Tawa

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A Letter to my Lover

Your tūpuna would be so proud
Listen quietly and you can hear
Tītokowaru himself applauding
And no, your body isn’t much of a temple right now
More a von Tempsky battle –
Yet every day you triumph
It’s true, undefeated is in your blood.
At dusk we hīkoi to your Taranaki cliffs
Jagged as Maui’s magic jawbone
Karoro greets us there, hovering at eyeline
Where soft volcanic soil presses itself against the sky
You raise your ribcage with a single breath
Ushering in Tāwhiri-mātea
As you whisper to yourself
To te manu
To all before you
‘I am here. I am well.’

* * *

Now, a Letter to Myself
Same war, different battle, you know?
If you’re proud of her then you’re proud of you
Your own ancestors would look up
From their paddyfield labours
And smile
Kwong Chong himself would be pleased to see you
Not far north
Of where he first built those market gardens
Where through many-a-celery and even-more-a-cauli
Your family grew.
The black-backed gulls giggle like happy kids
The cows trudge over for a curious look
And your ribcage rises, once,
Your mind eddies in the updraughts
Then settles
You are there, too. You are well.

Gabriel Field
Ōpunake - South Taranaki

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Estrella (Catullus 101)

Weigh anchor — for two kids crossing the lake in a dinghy to catch skinks. Years back.
They’ve yanked the starter, sparked the two-stroke motor, steered (through the waves)
away from the row of tents by the beach. Unmoor. Tai hoa. Take a breath. Try to speak
into this karoro-dusk. Since some Deus ex machina has conspired to steal your grasp
from my shoulder, so that you and I may no longer talk as you leant forwards
into the words in that way you had, ka kite, friend, taken / not given. Now (at least now)
these objects of our history                float
to the surface, rearrange in this elegy — take these gifts, raise the glass: whisky
tears. Let me salute your return to our tūpuna. Hau. Estrella, mute ashes, water
damage — The passage. Push the boat out. Put it there, partner. Haere ra.


Notes:
This poem is based on Gaius Valerius Catullus’ poem 101 — At his brother’s grave. The words “ taken / not given. Now (at least now) these objects of our history” are quoted from Mike Lala’s Say Goodbye to the Shores.

Annabel Wilson
Lyttelton

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I tēnei pō

I tēnei pō
I don’t know what scares me the most
Gulf Stream collapse
methane burning, or
having no food

I tēnei pō
I have listened to the
hau of my whānau
and they seem so peaceful, sleeping

By dawn
I hear the karoro cry outside
and I wonder
Will we be good ancestors?
Will we raise the kids so they can
exist in a violent, unforgiving world,
which
is
knocking
at
our
door?

Aotearoa

The day brings no relief with its pretence of normality

By day
I watch the Keeling Curve inch and soar
I watch the kaitiaki protect as best they can
I watch the karoro scavenge and squawk
With its brutal stare, white head and confident strut

It will be the last manu to succumb I think

Kate Hodgetts
Pōneke/Wellington

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The swimming dusk returns,
Moon locks
Sleepers into a singular
Dream, tides are
Like the echoing breath
Of ancestors 
Drowning towards heaven.
The black backed
Gull will raise its
Young, wings will sing
Two different songs
About procreation on a
Burning earth, needles
Have been turned
Upside down, who
Will guide the
Eco systems delicate
Thread through disparate
Eyes as dreamers are
Led through the
Wreckage of an ark.
Sun's ghost circles
Gull's offspring.

Barry Coleridge
Hull, England

❆ ❆ ❆

Old ‘Gulls’ throwing
Stones in a new
Zealand field.

‘E kō you,
wing in wind with
a black breath,
Smeared on
placard lips!’

‘Karoro don’t you
know it’s already
dusk;
A, Ancestor already sold
all your tūpuna
into the night.’

‘Karoro can’t you –read this:
–ain’t Aotearoa &,
–we ain’t partners in bed &
–you ain’t Hine-nui The Voice
–your pō or dispossessed SOUL
–is raised-rubbish tipped
–In our new Zealand!’

‘Hau! Hau! Hau!
Here comes Foucault!
It’s the Law!
Te Karoro
you’re in for a present, day
Originary Blue
Father Christmas!’

‘E kō! Karoro Haukuru, it,
was already yesterday when
we settled for ghost chips

–get! your ihu
matāo out of our
fish and chip papers’

nā, ko, your no/kau mātua[s].


Note:
Kō / Girl, a term of endearment according to Te Aka Maōri Dictionary. But is an insult in my Grandmother's dialect when applied by a parent to a daughter which is the intended use in this poem.

Tokorima Johnny Taihuringa (Mx)
Kapiti Coast, Waikanae

❆ ❆ ❆

Awe

I sit
Calm and mellow
Gazing at the star-lit pō.

‘Karoro’
My mother whispers
Love and pride intertwined in every syllable
‘This is where I was raised’
…
She told me about her tūpuna
Some parts new, some I knew
In broken chirps and notes
Pauses in place of miracles
Halfness of words
Interrupted by her own loss
Blankness

I could see Desperate
Struggling to search
A self beating when they never came
When she couldn’t find them
An exhaustion
physical labour could never substitute

I gaze up at her
Twilight fading into her sleek black feathers
Speckling with snow

I think I understand
Her disjointed hau
Of her two distinct worlds

I sit
Epiphanised
In the pō
Of a new dawn.

Ning Qian
Auckland

❆ ❆ ❆

A Greymouth Dinner Party

His death was a mere 8 weeks raw
When I learned the loneliness of grief,
The cruelty of others
At a Greymouth dinner party.
There, too many glasses
Were raised to consider the bad taste of suicide jokes
Or of pot-shots at the vulnerable,
Those who hung onto life though every breath hurt.
At the funeral, I had thought of my ancestors:
A grandfather who had been distant,
A great-grandmother who had played bowls,
Turning them to show me their weight,
The way they would roll, nudge up to the kitty.
Their deaths had been proper. Expected.
Elderly mourners, stories of a life long-lived.
But life had thrown me a curve ball.
At the funeral, my mother had been cold and distant.
Now, I sat still at the table, slowly dusk-shadowed.
Outside, a black-backed gull hunched.
Eyes intent on her brown-mottled baby
Pecking a salty sanded shell. Chips of greenstone.
It knew the fragility of life. Of grief. Despair.
I clutched my pounamu pendant. Once his, from me.
Now mine again. Outside, the sea sighed. Salty. Ceaseless

Lynda Scott Araya
Kurow, North Otago

❆ ❆ ❆

Te Karoro Karoro

Black-backed gulls skitter across sand.
They eye up your hot chips even as
the hungry beach swallows your sugar feet.
You are up to your ankles in ancestors.

One by one you fling deep-fries
up and up, again and again.
Their eyes are pinholes and the sky
is alive with the breath of wings.

You raise one chip high above your head.
Who among you is the bravest?
The one with the bung foot butts in,
snaps it up. You crush the empty bag.

Stuff it in your pocket. Watch the colony
settle, steal glances. The tide is coming in.
Dusk feathers and they move away
in waves as you lean into the easterly.


Note:
Te Karoro Karoro is the Māori place name for the New Brighton spit area in Ōtautahi Christchurch. Te Karoro Karoro references the place where 'the seagulls' chatter'.

Jenna Heller
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

One of the few snippets I remember
From Father Luke's Fifth Form English
Was his upbeat rendition of Glover's Magpies
Their go-to karaoke number
Projected forth on his rasping Rothman's breath.

What would his West European mouth
Make of the strident black-backed gull
Soaring on the storm-memories of ancestors
Lamenting the scudding dusk
And the dearth of food-scraps on the beach below?

And when will another Glover
With an ear for gullspeak
Grace the logosphere
Raise the spirit
And make fifteen-year-olds smile?

Bernard Harris
Palmerston North

❆ ❆ ❆

An enthusiasm of forest

The right way to live / like our distant ancestors
is to adapt to the transience of nature
on these heating Pacific Ocean mornings
of burning red pearl cloud on dusks distant shore
and drizzle that drifts like smoke, is smoke
through the lens, a window full of sky
with a memory of karoro millions circling the horizon
roaming all over the luxuriant coast,
the enthusiastic forest, tuatara
nodding in agreement in the flourishing language of the land
as it raises its voice through the mycorrhizal hyphae
the furious microbial silence
children of lava and wind, of seminal magma
tangled by umbilical threads
on a temple of altars, at Piroa/Brynderwyn
where Kawharu turned
to overlook the oceanic echo chamber
the breath of nine billion voices
the fleeting prayers of humanity

Piet Nieuwland
Whangarei

❆ ❆ ❆

Yes, I’m the chosen one

You were plucked out of the dusk
of your bastard mother’s breath
and given to us, we chose you,
dear, and we will raise you, you
are such a good girl, see how
you feather our nest, you are
special, you know, in this lawful light
and look here, these are your
ancestors now, we give them to you
from us, your parents, look,
your grandfather, how like you he is,
see him ride, we’ll give you a pony,
we’ll never clip your wings, we see
no wings, you’re special, see you fly,
dear, across the paddocks so like
your sister, there is nothing wrong,
no reason for those whisperings
at your back, no black-backed gull
in this nest of cuckoo, we love you,
we chose you, you’re special.

Gail Ingram
Ōtautahi/Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

Kotahi Ki Taku Wairua

I walk this breadth of shifting sand
Feel invisible wind, this whispering hau,
The breath of tīpuna
Eddies of past and present
Watching restless waters, gazing at
Te Karoro, feel myself in flight
Knowing the dusk is curving into night
Mai te pō ki ahau
Rises to meet the darkening whakaarahi
Kua hiki ake ahau ki runga
Ake I taku ao
Filled with the endless cantilenas
Of the sea
Kei te mohio au

Nothing that happens is in vain
Kei te noho ahau I tenei wa

Lee Thomson
Dunedin

❆ ❆ ❆

We march our evening route around New Zeaburbia
Brought to you by New Zealand's favourite Construction Corporates
Your stomps are faster and breaths sharper, quick huffs of excitementv         because I've brought your purple octopus kite along.
You pull the cord taut, whilst I raise the kite...and wait.
The expectant, gaudy, googly-eyed kite hangs there from my hand
        while its tentacle streamers flail flaccidly.v By happenstance this is Wellington's annual windless day.
The harbour in dusk reflects the city as an otherwise perfect mirror
smudged with blue wax crayon.

‘That penguin has found the wind" pronounced he, pointing at a soaring bird
‘Penguins can't fly. That's a karoro’ reckoned I, ‘a gull.’ I am indubitable.
‘If penguins fly underwater they can do flying in the sky even easier’ he hypothesized.

I refrain from rectifying him. I yearn to be erroneous on the matter;
I hope that penguins have finally defied their ancestors to obtain aerial liberty.
‘Starfish think penguins can fly’
He looks dubiously at me whilst I furtively suppress my mirth
‘It's a matter of perspective’ I offer sagely.

But what do I know?
I'm trying to fly a kite without wind.

Stuart Mudd (feat. Jasper Mudd, 4)
Wellington

❆ ❆ ❆

reaching dew point

too many moments pass
over like foggy breath on a six a.m. window.
each morning I sit on the carpet
with a cup of coffee and wait for the black-
backed gull to fondle the tip of my spine.
I am always waiting for something holy to take my waiting away.
how many prayers must I pray before the black-
backed gull sees me on the carpet, waiting
for dusk like a feline waits for hunter’s moon.
when I was small I could chase my ancestors
for hours. I could raise them from the dead
pile of leaves with a fingernail.
when I was small I could climb trees from root to crown
and know exactly how close to the sky or far from the soil I was.
now I drink coffee and write poems about the time
I can’t get back and some black-
backed gull I want to call Lucifer but won’t in case they hear me.
I won’t in case they hurt me.
instead, I drink coffee and write poems about the prayers
I can’t remember how to pray, too many moments
pass away like foggy breath on a six a.m. window.
still, I keep breathing.

Amy Marguerite
Ngaio, Wellington

❆ ❆ ❆

Karoro

The breath of ancestors
Brings dusk to an endless night
There are no stars there

They raise their wings
And hold us up

And we soar
In the sky

Demi Chang
Howick, Auckland

❆ ❆ ❆

Noho Mai – Given Poems 2021 – Under-16s

Here is our selection of the entries for Best Poem by Under-16s for the Given Words competition for National Poetry Day. They all had to include the following five words in either te reo Māori or English, or a mixture of the two: pō/dusk, hau/breath, tūpuna/ancestors, hiki/raise, and karoro/black-backed gull.


You can read the winning poem Eventide by Savarna Yang along with the judge's comments here and the poems from the adults' category here.

❆ ❆ ❆

The Hush

They decided to harvest the light
Picked it through the ceilings
Of mouldy tents
And washed their faces in stars
But always waiting for
The screams.

Breath was valued
More than any gold
Hanging on to an exhale
Seeing them raise up
Their chests
And exist.

The black-backed gulls
Would mimic the planes
That swept the sky
Clear of clouds
And left only
Destruction in their wake.

The dusk rolled in
Days grew longer
And the restlessness
Threatened to snap.
Their children joined
Their ancestors.

And they
Joined the ranks.

Thalia Peterson, aged 14
Leeston

❆ ❆ ❆

A Bridge of Smoke

At the cemetery
my Năinai burns red envelopes
brimming with paper money.

She lights incense, a bridge of smoke
raising colours of dusk to where my ancestors
float between clouds.

In my envelope,
is a drawing of a karoro
I brought from Aotearoa.

I take a deep breath
and throw it on the flames,
where it crackles and burns away.

We pay respect to our ancestors,
bow three times, then
look up to the hazy sky.

Karuna Yang, age 10
Mt Maungatua, Otepoti, Dunedin

❆ ❆ ❆

The Wings of Dusk

The karoro wheels high above the harbour,
the cloak of dusk tied to its feet
slowly dragging the stars into the sky.
It soars upon the hau of our ancestors,
each of them gifting their own farewells
their eyes watching over us—
jewels in the dusk-cloak.
if you raise your eyes to the heavens,
you will see their love,
and the karoro continuing its eternal journey

Tessa Smith, aged 14
Dunedin

❆ ❆ ❆

Dusk’s dark fingers raise
The breath of the ancestors
As black-backed gulls fly

Daniel Lovewell, Age 12
Masterton

❆ ❆ ❆

October
In memory of Jack Cutelli

how you laughed/
reminded me of a pink sunset at dusk.

how you cried/
would keep me awake at night, sucking the life out of me

how you remembered/
you tupuna, i could raise my glass to that.

your love for your younger one,
you were gorgeous: concentrating on your battered, fragmented breath/

i could smile with joy,
now I smile joylessly.
the karoro flew over me that day,
i lied to your face sure

but i was too late.

Your/
smile/
shook/
me/

hey i know it was hard.
that October,

but it was hard for me too:
i broke down when i found out,

too.

Lola Fisher, aged 12
Whanganui

❆ ❆ ❆

The Karoro

The karoro
was always her favourite.
Decades of dreaming
she could soar,
cutting through the sky.
She was a believer.
But dusk was coming
to collect her.
Stars sang,
and for the first time,
she could hear them.
She let out
a goodbye breath,
and her beautiful soul
flew through her parted lips.
The wind
would raise her soul
to the songs
of her ancestors,
the stars,
and she would be free
to soar
and cut
through the skies,
and her beautiful soul,
the karoro,
flew on.

Priya Bartlett, aged 12
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

Thawed

it’s Thursday and no one is here
the streets lay bare, the raised hesitance
in unnecessary commotion is only natural.

the black-backed gulls no longer hum
for the breath of dusk; its dead infants
once whined contently, nourished in polyethylene.

how far beyond the due date
until we notice declines of our own sanity?
worthless words with minimal actions,
impure oceans sway futile;
like mourning ancestors.

Amor Budiyanto, Age: 15
Cashmere Highschool, Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

Breath of Dusk

Breath of dusk
hold its silence,
she watches the waves
in
out
in again,
foaming in the
dark cold
the whispers of her ancestors
soft grains of sand
press into her scaled feet
she raises her feathers to the sky
and takes flight
the black-backed gull makes her journey
into the
night.

Olivia Adams, aged 12
School for Young Writers, Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

Together

My mum and I
saw a black-backed gull
at dusk

We were with our ancestors —
Mum was cooking kai,
her breath fast with joy,
as we raised up our eyes to see
Pōhutakawa (the Matariki star)

We were amazed
as the gull glided over the stars
and landed near us
and we ate together

Leo Wardell, aged 5
Dunedin

❆ ❆ ❆

Haere rā

At the dusk of their lives
The breath of tūpuna enters the waves
Kua hinga te tōtara o te wao nui a Tāne

Karoro burdened to raise those left behind

Wings of the forgotten
His cries resound against the cliffs

Released under te marama
Dappled by the light
Aere ma te meitaki e te au

Ava Heath Williams, aged 11
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

Dusk

The karoro swoops at dusk over the sea
Its back as black as night
Their flight carrying them to the shore

As dusk falls the pekapeka-tou-roa flies out of the cave
Wings outstretched as it glides
Their breath leading them to some prey

The cries of the ruru carry over the forest at dusk
Teaching its young to glide high
Their ancestors wings raising them higher

Noah Grossmith, aged 14
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

Pohutukawa Island

The branches of the
lone Pohutukawa tree sway
in the warm ocean winds.

The sky fades to
dusk as a Karoro
soars above the
isolated island.

The bird’s wings
raise it higher
into the air.

A small waka lands
on a soft-sanded beach.

A man lifts a small
wooden urn from
the bottom of the
waka and approaches a
cave.

He places the box on a
rock and whispers a
prayer to his tupuna.

He pushes the canoe
back into the water
and his breath curls up
into the cold air, as he
paddles away from
the gravesite.

Harris Steel, aged 15
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

The Rain and the Black-backed Gull

When the days are cloudy and cold, the rain comes.
When sheep are shorn and herded inside, the rain comes.
It blankets all in sorrow, and washes away all left unsecure.
It raises the dusk and clouds the breath of the lone black-backed gull.
Her ancestors had felt the salt on their feathers the way she does.
She lets out a call, a call from the heart.
It swirls around the rain, heating up intensely.
The gull set the rain on fire.

Lucy Penney, aged 9
Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆

dusk is near and no one’s ready

a tradition
passed on from ancestors
we can’t stop now
the last light falls

I push - boat towards cool water
sand trickles in my shoes
all my strength

I raise - gaze to the horizon
ten seconds left of light
a release

weightless

I jump – the boat my cradle
black-backed gulls fly
distil the water
make ripples
shimmer in the last glimpse of light

My breath - cold air numbs my throat
sailing to catch the sun.

Hannah Burnett, 14
St Andrew’s College, Christchurch

❆ ❆ ❆