Katūīvei: Contemporary Pasifika Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand is the latest in a decades-long line of anthologies of Pasifika poetry written in English. The title is a neologism created by editors David Eggleton, Vaughan Rapatahana and Mere Taito, referencing the Rotuman verb to navigate and the tūī, bird of two voiceboxes. 

I love reading anthologies but they’re a bugger to review: how on earth to summarise a starburst of different reading experiences? My copy bristles with the post-it flags I use to mark particularly memorable lines. In the absence of any sensible criteria, then, and out of the editors’ careful alphabetical order, here are some routes into these wayfinding double-voiced songs.

Rhegan Tu’akoi is a young poet of Tongan and Pākehā descent based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. I’m a sucker for a funny title and loved hers: ‘Emails from AirNZ are the bane of my existence’. The tone is lively and humorous, bubbling with Tu’akoi’s anger at the airline’s hypocrisy in asking passengers to pay extra to reduce their carbon footprint. The poem ends with the mic-drop:

surely Air New Zealand 
should be paying to
offset colonisation (p. 256)

John Pule is a Niuean poet who has been writing and publishing since the 80s. He used to live in Tāmaki Makaurau but has now returned to live in Liku, the village where he was born. His poem ‘I try to leave with the sun’ is written in one long continuous line, only interrupted by the typographical breaks inherent in a rectangular-shaped book and the occasional backslash. I found it challenging to read because my prose-trained mind didn’t know when to take a breath. His work forced me to remember that poetry is unskimmable and to be read out loud. Every line-part seems to be its own poem:

ants taught my mother invisibility … oh the miracle of windows … birds that pecked
at the protein in my poetry laugh (p. 182)

Amber Esau describes herself as a “Sā-māo-rish” writer born and raised in Tāmaki Makaurau. Last year she held the Emerging Māori-Pasifika Writers Residency at the Michael King Writers’ Centre where she set out to work on a novel that I’m now looking forward to. Her poem ‘Street Fighter’ is an ode to after-school trips to the dairy to buy lollies and play spacies:

a ring of school uniforms tightens like a scrunchie (p. 69)

Speaking of school children – Aigagalefili Fepulea’i-Tapua’i is one of those awe-inspiring young people who is rising to the challenge of climate change by taking direct action. Her poem ‘275 Love Letters to Southside’ was first performed at Marama Davidson’s Green Party campaign launch in 2017. It begins:

Auckland is not the same place as South Auckland.
When I learnt that no place outside of South Auckland would want to pronounce my name properly
I scraped it off their tongues (p. 75)

When Fepulea’i-Tapua’i republished this instant hit on her Instagram in 2020 she included the caption 

with the upcoming election, & as a lil shi who wishes she was old enough to vote,
please vote in the best interest of the youth. not ur bank acc. not ur ego.
not ur conditioned biases based on whack ass media. … to the casket n past it🤞🏽

I love the direct line she draws between poetry and political action. 

In a pukapuka filled with, as a previous anthology of Māori writing had it, black marks on the white page, Pelenakeke Brown’s marks stand out. Brown wields her word processor like a tattoo artist. Her pages are a canvas decorated not only with text but with typographical symbols, demanding to be met as visual art as well as poetry. 

Finally, in an attempt to give you a tiny squint at the wholeness of Katūīvei, here are its first and last lines. The poems begin with Marina Alefosio’s ‘Raiding the Dawn’ – “Who is worthy of the first light?” (p. 20) – and end with Faith Wilson’s ‘Bah Humbuck’: 

I want this ride to go on forever. And ever. Amen. (p. 292)

Reviewed by Elizabeth Heritage