Kiri Piahana-Wong is a poet and editor and is the publisher at Anahera Press. Her new collection Tidelines was published this year, and she recently co-edited the anthology Te Awa o Kupu. She is interviewed by Briar Wood.
Briar Wood: Ngā mihi Kiri. Your book Tidelines has just been launched. Can you say something about how it grew into this published form?
Kiri Piahana-Wong: I wrote most of the poems in Tidelines in 2013, when I was living out at Laingholm on Auckland’s west coast. Ten of the fourteen poems in the book were written in a cluster at that time. These poems emerged effortlessly and almost perfectly formed (I never had to significantly edit or rewrite any of them), but then I struggled to resolve the book. For a few years I thought the book should be longer, and I wrote a second section, but the poems in that section never worked. Then my son was born, and I disappeared into new motherhood for quite a few years. I started emerging from that precious but also extremely intense time when my son started school last year. Turning back to the book, I found that time and distance enabled me to now resolve it easily.
Briar: Can you say more about Hinerangi (an early tupuna of Te Kawerau ā Maki in the Waitakere rohe), and how her life inspired this poetry collection?
Kiri: During the time I lived at Laingholm I frequently walked the Mercer Bay Loop Track, which is a popular and beautiful short walk in the Waitākeres. There is a pou on that track of Hinerangi, and a plaque that tells her story. Many centuries ago, Hinerangi lived at Karekare with her husband, until the day she lost him in a tragic fishing accident. She then sat on the headland, refusing to leave, until she too died. This story really affected me, and I would always pause at that point in the walk and re-read it, and also spend some time with her pou and look out at the cliff face that is named after her (Te Ahua o Hinerangi). I suppose you could say I absorbed her story on a deep level and it started coming through in my poetry. I find her choice, which was to sit on the headland until she died, a profoundly moving response to grief and a powerful action to take. It is also problematic and troubling, even disturbing. The book is finished now, but I’m still thinking it over.
Briar: Through identification with Hinerangi, the implied speakers in some of the poems experience a merging with the taiao–environment, sometimes a near-death experience. The identification with the wairua of the past is specifically Māori, so how would you say this speaks to our present time, and the future? Would you say there are additional influences, beside those of the named Māori wairua?
Kiri:These are such big questions. In my own family, we were taught that it’s a mistake to draw too close to the otherworld because it isn’t safe. I hope that in Tidelines that sense of danger comes through and the sense of care that’s needed. Some people are more sensitive to other realities, which can leave them vulnerable to I suppose what in non-Māori medical terms we might label mental illness. I dislike the idea that that people are mentally ill. Sensitive people need more care and protection. We aren’t ill and our sensitivity is a gift. Having said all of that, I’m not averse to what western medicine offers and I’ve personally found that taking medication has helped me restore balance in my mental health at times. Feeling connected to my ancestry, my ties and relationships, slowing down and being grounded, all helps too. I’m not sure that I’ve directly answered the question, but hopefully my response makes sense.
Briar: The title of Tidelines seems to suggest liminal and changing spaces. There are a lot of references to secluded places in the poems (even when they are well known public locations) that open out into poetic thought and creativity. What connections are there for you between locations you choose to write about and poetic inspiration?
Kiri: I’ve always felt a strong connection to the natural world and I’m drawn to write poetry about that – I’ve written a lot of poetry about the ocean and beach landscapes (which is reflected in the titles of my two poetry collections Night Swimming and Tidelines). I find that out in nature there’s a chance for the mind’s busy background chatter to slow down, and that’s when a poem can naturally arise. Nature is also just so flat out awe-inspiring which is a help when it comes to poetic inspiration. I walked around the lake that’s near my house this morning, and I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. Although it’s also important to note that although nature can make us feel calmer, it isn’t necessarily calm itself! I think of the violence and movement of waves on the beach in a storm, or even just the birds on my morning walk today who were busily building nests, hunting for fish and doing glide-landings onto the water.
Briar: For a lot of people writing and reading can help us through difficult times. What’s your view on this and how do you situate your pukapuka as a work of tupoho, consolation?
Kiri: I thoroughly agree with this and would go so far as to say that I could not have gotten through hard times in my life without reading and writing. Reading is the most wonderful activity because it fulfills so many needs we have—different books can variously encourage, inspire, console and instruct, or simply provide an escapist break, like taking a mini holiday. During any given week I can be found reading poetry, a literary novel, a collection of essays, and a genre fiction book (usually romance or fantasy). I read a mixture of physical books and eBooks. Writing helps too and is an outlet when things are difficult. It’s like a form of self-therapy. I do hope that some of the harder things I write about in Tidelines will be helpful for people to read, in terms of giving voice to similar experiences readers might have had.
Briar: You’ve been working as an editor on journals and anthologies of Māori writing such as Ora Nui and Te Awa o Kupu. What do you see as current trends and developments in Māori writing? Have they affected your own work, and if so, how?
Kiri: It’s been incredible to see the explosion in Māori writing and publishing that has taken place just in the last couple of years. More books by Māori writers are being published, including by mainstream publishers, and Māori-led journals and small presses are proliferating. This is a huge change. It’s a great time to be a Māori writer. With poetry I notice that identity is a popular topic—who we are and where we come from —however Māori writers in general are writing broadly on every topic imaginable. There is even quite a bit of Māori science fiction. I predict the next big thing for us as writers will be building on our language reclamation and increasingly writing, or feeling the urge/call to write, in te reo Māori. As for me, it’s inspiring and energizing to be writing and publishing at this time.
Briar: Can you talk about Anahera Press, how it began and where you see it going now?
Kiri: When I started Anahera Press in 2011, things could not have been more different than what I’ve just described. Hardly any Māori writers were being published at all. Mainstream publishers did not understand our writing and they rarely published us. Māori small presses and journals were rare. Māori writers were still writing, for sure, but without secure publication outlets. Anahera Press was just my attempt to take a small step in a different direction. My future hopes for Anahera are that it will continue to publish and promote beautiful, meaningful and/or inspiring poetry, and that the press will consolidate its efforts within Te Ao Māori. I also plan to open for general submissions later this year. I haven’t had the capacity to open for general subs for a long time, but I do now, and I’m looking forward to reading new work.