#Māori poetry

[words-and-coffee]

Alice Te Punga Somerville, Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised - Kupu rere kē

[ID: A poem titled: Kupu rere kē. [in italics] My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems. This advice came from a well-meaning woman with NZ poetry on her business card and an English accent in her mouth. I have been thinking about this advice. The convention of italicising words from other languages clarifies that some words are imported: it ensures readers can tell the difference between a foreign language and the language of home. I have been thinking about this advice. Marking the foreign words is also a kindness: every potential reader is reassured that although you're expected to understand the rest of the text, it's fine to consult a dictionary or native speaker for help with the italics. I have been thinking about this advice. Because I am a contrary person, at first I was outraged — but after a while I could see she had a point: when the foreign words are camouflaged in plain type you can forget how they came to be there, out of place, in the first place. I have been thinking about this advice and I have decided to follow it. Now all of my readers will be able to remember which words truly belong in -[end italics]- Aotearoa -[italics]- and which do not.

Next image is the futurama meme: to shreds you say...]

(Image ID by @bisexualshakespeare)

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems."

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

[wordswithloveee]

[camalyng]

Kupu here kē

My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems. This advice came from a well-meaning woman with NZ poetry on her business card and an English accent in her mouth.

I have been thinking about this advice.

The convention of italicising words from other languages clarifies that some words are imported: it ensures readers can tell the difference between a foreign language and the language of home.

I have been thinking about this advice.

Marking the foreign words is also a kindness: every potential reader is reassured that although you're expected to understand the rest of the text, it's fine to consult a dictionary or native speaker for help with the italics.

I have been thinking about this advice.

Because I am a contrary person, at first I was outraged -- but after a while I could see she had a point: when the foreign words are camouflagued in plain type you can forget how they came to be there, out of place, in the first place.

I have been thinking about this advice and I have decided to follow it.

Now all of my readers will be able to remember which words truly belong in Aotearoa and which do not.

Alice Te Punga Somerville (Te Āti Awa, Taranaki) Always Italicise: how to write while colonised Auckland University Press 2022; purchase link in comments

[takataapui]

A poem about how time is a circle, echoing down through the generations. And also colonisation and psychosis, I suppose.

You, my tūpuna A hundred years after the empire came. Forced into a school, Forced to speak the Queen's English. You didn't know how you didn't kōrero their reo so you stayed quiet to avoid punishment. Yet punish you they did for disobedience for not listening for silence. Me, your moko, Two hundred fifty years After the empire came. Forced into a school, Forced to be a good student. I had a split from reality. Stayed quiet to avoid killing everyone as the delusion said speaking would do Yet they still punished me for disobedience for not listening for silence. A hundred fifty years between us Yet I feel the echo of you in me A hundred fifty years between us Yet the colonisation lives on A hundred fifty years between us Yet we are a pool of water reflecting each other They see our silence as breaking their rules, I see it as survival.

[musings-of-a-kiwafruit]

Karanga mai,

e te moana o aku tīpuna

Ka huri au, ka rongo ki a Tangaroa

Ka hurihia, ka pūawhehia au e Tāwhiri-mātea

Whakatakina ai aku tātai

———

Call me forth

The ocean of my ancestors

I turn to, I listen to/sense Tangaroa [God of the Ocean]

I am turned and blown about Tāwhiri-mātea [God of the Wind]

In search of my heritage / Reciting my lineage

[balthazarslostlibrary]

I recently used an extended experience of transphobia I endured in writing for a university assignment. I wrote a last bit in te reo Māori, not as something for more context for the assignment, but for myself.

Although my experience turned out ok, it damaged my mana in a way that I can’t quite move on from. Even now, a month and a half out from it, I still don’t feel like my mana is fully restored. It makes me feel weak to not have healed by now, it makes me feel that I’m not cut out to pursue the career I want to pursue.

After reflecting upon it and using academic language to describe it, I needed something more. I needed something to help me move on. And so, I wrote the following.

Kia kaha ki ōku whānau takatāpui katoa

Ahakoa te wero

Ahakoa te mamae

Ahakoa te aha

Be strong all of my queer whānau

No matter the challenge

No matter the hurt

No matter what

It started as something to say to myself quietly, and to a professor who might not even understand it. I hoped that it would make me feel better, that if I can say it to other people, they would say it to me. That if they said it to me, I could believe in its meaning, it could apply to me, I could be strong no matter what.

The hope that it would make me feel better hasn’t come to fruition yet unfortunately, but I also have hope that it will. Because really, if I don’t have hope, hope that my words will resonate, hope that the world will get better, hope that I will get better, what else do I have?

I hope that you, yes you reading this right now, can take strength from this. I hope your queer whānau can take strength from this.

I hope that we can all be strong. No matter what.

[thejourneyblog]

It is said that they worked From dawn until dusk Not for world peace But pieces of the world Pieces of dirt Ripped out the roots All of our energy Wasted on  The earth was split Taxed and owned Who needs to share When you can have shares You could each have your own That’s what they said No need for each other Sharing is sparing Look over there They want it too You better go hide And don’t look outside We stayed in our corners Clutching it tight Worried for the day We’d have to fight Whatever was left Broken and shattered  Not from devils But angels that scattered To each their own Not for each other Only against what Nature was left You wouldn’t believe it If you saw for yourself We trades sky and sea creatures For metal and screens. We watched them there What wasn’t alive. We reminisced  While there was still time We don’t know who Made things this way But we know Who watched and stayed 

[blackberryjambaby]

from te kōtahekore ranapiri on twitter

[theotherpacman]

cw: identity stuff

white girl

a poem by me

sometimes i look in the mirror half-expecting to see a white girl

thin features honey hair and blue eyes like my mother's

sometimes i am almost surprised

to see the broad nose wide mouth forehead too big and the bent crooked hair that never seems to frame it right

and the color, just tan, that's all, but darker than family reunions and darker than smiles in stories and sometimes

sometimes i can't quite make it my face in my mind and sometimes

i screw up my nose and i scowl my eyebrows above wide wide eyes and stick out my tongue just to see the strange face in the mirror

my face it's my face it's me

to see the face in the mirror make a fierce pūkana at me, and whetero too

not white like my mother and not a girl either

but not of the island where my father's father is buried, not at all, and not a man

just a brown face brown eyes in the wrong places frown lips in the wrong shape

even if sometimes i almost don't recognize

my face it's my face it's me.

[words-and-coffee]

Kupu rere kē My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems. This advice came from a well-meaning woman with NZ poetry on her business card and an English accent in her mouth. I have been thinking about this advice. The convention of italicising words from other languages clarifies that some words are imported: it ensures readers can tell the difference between a foreign language and the language of home. I have been thinking about this advice. Marking the foreign words is also a kindness: every potential reader is reassured that although you’re expected to understand the rest of the text, it’s fine to consult a dictionary or native speaker for help with the italics. I have been thinking about this advice. Because I am a contrary person, at first I was outraged — but after a while I could see she had a point: when the foreign words are camouflaged in plain type you can forget how they came to be there, out of place, in the first place. I have been thinking about this advice and I have decided to follow it. Now all of my readers will be able to remember which words truly belong in Aotearoa and which do not.

Alice Te Punga Somerville, Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised - Kupu rere kē

[khrystynalaszczukpoet]

te reo Māori

You will not speak Māori!

Tame Iti*, then a child, punished

Many 100 lines later

For a simple act of defiance

Until “te reo Māori” was heard, so proud

It could no longer be cowed!

Today new government, old agenda

The first 100 days resurrected

A global anglosphere renaissance

That began with Brexit and the masses

Aspiring to quell resistance

and burn the Treaty of Waitangi to ashes

Wind back time 100 years

 Hitler wrote how those who weld power must

 “with brutal ruthlessness press through”

creating harmful policies that

enact their sense of right

the systemic genocide of Māori finally in sight!

Be warned. A tidal wave is brewing

A new and stronger generation of warriors is rising up

your 184 years of oppression no longer assured

You should have learnt your lesson

Many 100 lines ago………………

te reo Māori WILL endure!

Note: Tame Iti, a key warrior of the Māori renaissance, was as a child forced to write 100 lines “I Will Not Speak Māori” each time he spoke te reo Māori.

The newly elected New Zealand Government have signed to a coalition that will either repeal or review at least a dozen Māori related policies including abolishing the Māori Health Authority, set up to address appalling health disparities and rolling back the use of the endangered Māori language, te reo Māori.

[wordswithloveee]

[storiesofoko]

Stories of legends lost to history,

Only living on through 

Those who continue to tell their tale.

~Oko

[salvadorbonaparte]

Since my big Languages and Linguistics MEGA folder post is approaching 200k notes (wow) I am celebrating with some highlights from my collection:

Africa: over 90 languages so far. The Swahili and Amharic resources are pretty decent so far and I'm constantly on the lookout for more languages and more resources.

The Americas: over 100 languages of North America and over 80 languages of Central and South America and the Caribbean. Check out the different varieties for Quechua and my Navajo followers are invited to check out the selection of Navajo books, some of which are apparently rare to come by in print.

Ancient and Medieval Languages: "only" 18 languages so far but I'm pretty pleased with the selection of Latin and Old/Middle English books.

Asia: over 130 languages and I want to highlight the diversity of 16 Arabic dialects covered.

Australia: over 40 languages so far.

Constructed Languages: over a dozen languages, including Hamlet in the original Klingon.

Creoles: two dozen languages and some materials on creole linguistics.

Europe: over 60 languages. I want to highlight the generous donations I have received, including but not limited to Aragonese, Catalan, Occitan and 6 Sámi languages. I also want to highlight the Spanish literature section and a growing collection of World Englishes.

Eurasia: over 25 languages that were classified as Eurasian to avoid discussions whether they belong in Europe or Asia. If you can't find a language in either folder it might be there.

History, Culture, Science etc: Everything not language related but interesting, including a collection of "very short introductions", a growing collection of queer and gender studies books, a lot on horror and monsters, a varied history section (with a hidden compartment of the Aubreyad books ssshhhh), and small collections from everything like ethnobotany to travel guides.

Jewish Languages: 8 languages, a pretty extensive selection of Yiddish textbooks, grammars, dictionaries and literature, as well as several books on Jewish religion, culture and history.

Linguistics: 15 folders and a little bit of everything, including pop linguistics for people who want to get started. You can also find a lot of the books I used during my linguistics degree in several folders, especially the sociolinguistics one.

Literature: I have a collection of classic and modern classic literature, poetry and short stories, with a focus on the over 140 poetry collections from around the world so far.

Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia: over 40 languages and I want to highlight the collection for Māori, Cook Islands Māori and Moriori.

Programming Languages: Not often included in these lists but I got some for you (roughly 5)

Sign Languages: over 30 languages and books on sign language histories and Deaf cultures. I want to highlight especially the book on Martha's Vineyard Sign Language and the biography of Laura Redden Searing.

Translation Studies: Everything a translation student needs with a growing audiovisual translation collection

And the best news: the folders are still being updated regularly!

[aaknopf]

A poem of girlhood and after by Indigenous New Zealander Tayi Tibble, whose second collection, Rangikura, comes out in America today. In the dictionary of Māori language, hōmiromiro is defined as “a white-breasted North Island tomtit…a little black-and-white bird with a large head and short tail.” It is often used to refer to someone with a tomtit’s keen vision—that is, a sharp eye for detail.

Hōmiromiro

I used to dream about a two-headed goldfish. I took it for an omen. I smashed a milk bottle open

on a boiling road and watched a three-legged dog lick it up and in the process I became not myself but a single shard of glass and thought finally

I had starved myself skinny enough to slip into the splits of the universe but once I did I realised that the universe was no place for a young thing to be and there is always a lot more starving to be had.

When I was a girl I thought

I was Daisy Buchanan. I read on the train. I made voluminous eyes.

Once I walked in front of a bus and it exploded into a million monarch butterflies then I was ecstatic!

As a girl, I could only fathom

time as rose petals falling down my oesophagus. It tickled and it frightened me. I ran around choking for attention.

I had projections of myself at 100 my neck weathered and adorned like the boards of a home being eaten by the earth.

When I was a girl I would lie

on the side of that road in the last lick of sun and wait for the rabbits to come saluting the sky of orange dust

and then I would shoot them into outer space.

For many years I watched them bouncing on the moon. But then I stopped caring and so I stopped looking.

More on this book and author:

Learn more about Rangikura by Tayi Tibble.

Browse other books by Tayi Tibble and follow her on Instagram @paniaofthekeef.

Hear Tayi Tibble and Harryette Mullen read from their new poetry collections at Beyond Baroque in Los Angeles, CA on April 10 at 8:00 PM. Tayi Tibble will be joined by Sasha LaPointe in Washington for a series of readings and conversations at Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle on April 13 at 7:00 PM, at King's Books in Tacoma on April 14 at 1:00 PM, at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art in Bainbridge on April 15 at 7:00 PM, and at Third Place Books in Seattle, Lake Forest Park, on April 16 at 7:00 PM. Tayi and Sasha will also be at Broadway Books in Portland, OR, on April 17 at 6:00 PM. Tayi will be at the LA Times Book Festival signing books at the ALTA booth (Booth 111) on April 20 at 11:00 AM.

Visit our Tumblr to peruse poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series.

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.