Robert Sullivan belongs to the Māori tribes Ngā Puhi (Ngāti Manu/Ngāti Hau) thanks to his mother; he belongs to Kāi Tahu thanks to his father, who also gifts him an Irish passport. He has had seven books of poetry published, including Jazz Waiata and Star Waka with AUP, Cassino City of Martyrs (2010) with Huia, and Shout Ha! to the Sky (2010) with Salt Publishing, London. His poetry appears in Harvard Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Moving Worlds, Salt and Landfall. He co-edits the online journal Trout, and co-edited with Anne Kennedy Best New Zealand Poems 2006. His entries on ‘Maori Poetry’ and ‘Polynesian Poetry’ are forthcoming in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. He served for two years as director of creative writing at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and is the new head of the creative writing school at Manukau Institute of Technology.
Didn’t we get rid of him? There are far too many statues, operas and histories. If only I could be a brown Orwell – a Māori Big Bro, find every little caption card in every European museum and scrub it out: change the wording to, ‘This was given to Captain Cook as a token of friendship and should be buried with him’, OR ‘This was temporarily given to Captain Cook and would have been expected to be returned on his death’, OR ‘Well, actually, Captain Cook stole this’, OR ‘The Captain exchanged this for something vastly inferior in value – ha ha for him!’ But even as an extra large bro I suspect the lies would leak. The empire that sent him to his death three times would have its hero.
with an image from ‘Sigh’ by Stéphane Mallarmé
Can the sun be drawn out without
me beating him? Can a yellow
ray soothe the earth like a cool cloth?
Can the clouds sit on blue a while
longer? Let them push white over
the snow-flower mountains draping
my island, flowers to make leis
up for the eyes of my waka.
Let the sun walk gently, longing
for a good night. Then he can glide.
Before we knew what our cousin signed
for blankets, and grog, we were told in a hui
to move off the land. We wanted to argue
and kōrero with our arero and puke like the tui
that flew away. The sharp-beaked magpies turned up,
pecking and squawking, frazzled and screwy.
We tried to unpick the stitches from the new no. 8 wires
and kōrero’d with our arero and clucked like the tui
that flew away. But it did no good. Our family were not understood.
Not understood, the farmers said, shooing
us down the dusty trail. Your talk sounds like the magpies –
all quardling oodling ardling wardling and doodling.
Do you mean to say kōrero, uri, arero, wairua, ruruhau perhaps sir?
for Albert
The equivalent Māori phrase to the Tahitian
is wairua tupu, spirit of growth. Beautiful
beautiful Mā‘ohi people, tangata whenua.
I see their images in a journal, a photo of Henri Hiro
who calls on the tāngata to write! Write in English!
Write in French! Write in Tahitian! Which
reminds me of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s challenge
to change the world and of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s
Ogoni star dancing in the blackness of heaven
and of Haunani-Kay Trask’s sharkskin rhythms
calling out Pele in her people and Albert Wendt’s
spiralling caul of liquid fire.
We connect ourselves with poems of struggle,
hearts hammering like Martín Espada’s father,
fear embraced and set free by Joy Harjo. I serve
Cervantes. He sat down on his back step
near 60, one-armed, two whole teeth in his head,
and began to write Don Quixote said W. S. Merwin
as he began a reading here. Allen Curnow
recited to me ‘I the poet William Yeats’
and Robert Kroetsch read with the heart
of a young man, while Margaret Atwood’s eros
poems rested their wings with me. Write out the lives,
write them alive, write till the fire strikes,
another fire, a torch, a whakaaraara warning cry
kia hiwa rā! kia hiwa rā! kia hiwa rā ki tēnei tuku!
kia hiwa rā ki tēnā tuku!* Watch every terrace
of the fortress, there’s an enemy climbing up,
a blaze from heaven, kia hiwa rā! my friend.
So I light a fire here in this stanza,
my small room with large windows,
carried from the fires on the hills
and the haka fires in the poets
from the processions of mysteries
and lamped freeways, from history sourced
in gin of the Fleet Ditch and Gordon Riots,
and James Cook’s golden narratives
to our own kōrero neherā, our oral
bodies caressed tuku iho tuku iho down
to present hands cupped to mouths
as we plunge and rise in the ancestor ocean
shield our eyes from bullet-train rays
and think of our father Māui
who planted himself and his brothers
in the East who caught Tamanui the Sun
after the night at the crater
of the creator our mother the Earth.
Poet Henri Hiro in brotherly spirit I embrace you.
Je t’embrasse. Ka awhi au i a koe e te tuakana.
Moe mai moe mai moe mai rā e te tama manawawera,
te tama ngākau mārie hoki. He waiata aroha,
he mihi mīharo nā te kitenga o ō waiata, ō whakaaro
painga mō ngā tāngata moutere. Ka haka!
I turn back to the flame of life. Ka oriori au: tihei mauri ora!*
I’ve been weaving this for years,
trying to make a cloak fit for a chief in state,
warding off the newcomers until
our sovereignty returns.
The proverb says never to bow your head
unless it’s to a mighty range of mountains.
Another proverb says that a man will die for two
things: Women and land. Parts of me have already
died for these but I am ready to pass
my fingers through a needle to reach them.
The cyclops have written their critiques,
some so harsh it’s hard to cross the sea
feeling easy, assured of a welcome home.
The portents for a return are wrong.
Hawaiki ends the longing, where the soul
rests after its dive to the beloved.
We enter the great house baring our feet
and those of us who believe put on wings.
for Alistair Te Ariki Campbell
Carried out by tears, songs and speeches
they make offerings on their journeys –
the atua are strange, ‘plant gods, tree gods’,
who’d strike them – until the familiar
path shudders down – a heavy wave
on the shining sands of the longest beach.
Spirits flying from east and west, ridging
the spine between, meet at the headland
above Tōhē’s beach. At Maringi Noa
they look back, tears thundering down to join
new ones coming north. At Waingunguru
the stream mourns them. They climb another hill,
reach another stream – then a waterfall
silenced by their crossing. They continue
the last ascent, a ridge, which lifts up the cape
to Hiriki, then a sharp fall where water
lies waiting to hold them. They are expected
to drink and swallow the night, with
a chance, even then, to stay – the sentinel
there has the power to turn them back.
They continue. Desires splutter like spit
on flames. They’re leaving for long Hawaiki,
to sail, dip and chant like birds forever.
The mist swarms over the last cliff, climbs off
the last piece of coast over the ocean, home.
We light the poem and breathe out
the growing flames. Ahi kā. This
is our home – our fire. Hot tongues out
– pūkana – turn words to steam. This
fish heart is a great lake on a
skillet. Ahi kā! Ahi kā!
Keep the fire. The sun’s rays are ropes
held down by Māui’s brothers.
They handed down ray by burning
ray to each other every
day – we keep the home fires burning
every day. Mountains of our
house are its pillars – I believe
in the forces that raised them here.
Ahi kā burnt on to summits
char in the land, ahi kā dream,
long bright cloud brilliant homeland.
Ahi kā our life, ahi kā
carried by the tribe’s forever-story
firing every lullaby.
Shadows shrink in our hands’ quiver
as we speak – ahi kā sing fire
scoop embers in the childhood sun
stare into molten shapes and see
people – building, sailing, farming –
see them in the flames of our land
see them in this forever light
kā no weeping only hāngī pits
no regrets just forgiveness and
a place for the fire – its our song
to sing – ahi kā – got to keep
singing the shadows away – ha!