“All 11-year-olds should have the opportunity to see and hear poetry in a way that explodes their world.”
Selina Tusitala Marsh puts her poetry epiphany down to a visit from her school by the poet Sam Hunt, a larger than life figure with a mercurial performance style. (He also releases his own wines, with verses from his poems on the label, an idea that I think all poets should take up.) Selina's poetry reads beautifully on the page but she too is a great performer of her work, and presents a striking and vivid figure. New Zealand is a modern, urbane, and self-confident society - we have seen this from its enviable actions in the recent crisis- and Selina's work reflects that sophistication but combined with a rich tribal Pacific island heritage. Her rhythms are eclectic and cross cultural, not surprising since her own ancestry is Samoan, Tuvaluan, English, Scottish and French, but her work is open to all influences including pop culture, the 'insta' age, even sport. Her 2013 collection 'Dark Sparring' came about as a result of taking up kick boxing as way of expressing the anger and grief she felt at her mother's death. her poetry, like the example below, 'Afakasi', literally 'Mixed Race', often incorporates Maori or Pacific languages and cadences.She grew up in a working class family in Avondale, a suburb of Aukland known for its giant race track and industrial park, an area which had been settled by many Maori and Pacific Island families from the 1980s. Her mother was Samoan and had arrived in New Zealand barely literate and unable to speak English. Her father was a steelworker. In 2004 Selina became the first Pacific Islander to graduate with a PHD from Aukland University, and now lectures in creative writing and pacific literature.Her poetry collections, including 'Fast Talking PI', 'Dark Sparring' and 'Tightrope' have received huge acclaim and awards and been translated world-wide. She edits 'Pasifika Poetry' a website devoted to the literature and poets of the Pacific region and is co-chair of the South Pacific Association of Language and Literature. Late last year 'Mophead' her memoir was published, in which she describes her background, influences and philosophies in life. Selina Marsh represented Tuvalu in the Poetry Olympics in London 2012, was named the official Commonwealth poet in 2016, and was appointed to the position of New Zealand Poet Laureate 2017-2019. The Laureate receives a ceremonial 'tokotoko' that you can see in the picture above. In 2019 she was awarded the NZ Order of Merit for services to poetry, literature and the Pacific community. Here Selina reads 'Love in the Time of Coronavirus'
Half moons ago people were hollowed-out tablets of stone spaces were given them according to spaces they left
some of these spaces were filled with pages ink leaching out great deeds done marginalia filled with greater ones
other spaces were filled with fe’e sliding on story after story older ones wrapped in thundering fagogo younger ones rapping ill semantics
other spaces were filled with carved blocks of wood cocooned in tissue-thin mulberry these long hollow spaces echoed the beat of years heavy with folded legs and the thump thump of old women beating
some spaces were filled with darkness no light would shine there
other spaces weren’t spaces at all but blistering mirages no wind would blow there
other spaces were filled with va these were warmed with the breath of others the thrum of matua tausi even if she was just another mirage
other spaces were hard suffocating stone eyes calcifying
in other spaces hovered pouliuli te kore, a nothingness, a yawning galaxy into these spaces the young would dip their forefingers rubbing the blackness on their lips a moko mapping where they had been and where they were to go
some spaces have pink retro bean-bags in the corner cups of gumboot tea on the floor upturned books in punched-out hollows
some spaces are filled with the music of hands fa’ataupati, not theatre applause eyes open, mouths clapped shut but open-mouthed choo-choo! malie!
some spaces are filled with no dancing no flying fingers soaring wind no shuffling of hips no siva no tau’olunga no light in the body
some spaces are tied with rubber bands trying to render control over black unruly spaces a parting and a plaiting of space a twisting of space into a bun
some spaces are filled with sunlight soap from the kagamea laughing over rocks into the ocean where a dead Alsatian floats under a net of flies caught underneath the makeke pier
some spaces are brown some are blue o lo’u igoa Tusitala je m’appelle Marchant flow in and outturning space sinopia
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