Editorial
‘Poetry,’ wrote W. H. Auden, ‘makes nothing happen.’ The vitriolic political furore that erupted around poet Tusiata Avia and her poem about Captain Cook, ‘The Savage Coloniser,’ around this time last year would seem to suggest that this is, in fact, not the case. This was a case of something very much happening, indeed, breathtakingly so.
On some levels, it made a refreshing change to see poetry taken seriously in the mainstream media for once, and while it might seem trite to suggest that no publicity is bad publicity, it no doubt provided an enormous boost of attention to the premiere of a theatrical version of the poem, The Savage Coloniser Show, in the programme of the Auckland Arts Festival in February 2023.
Admittedly it is a confronting poem, angry in tone, violent in language, about Cook, his legacy, and its eventual relationship with British imperialism and colonisation in the Pacific. It lit the touchpaper of an ever increasingly disingenuous right wing, with the obligatory bloviation and arse-trumpery about ‘reverse racism’ from the likes of Sean Plunket, David Farrar, Winston Peters, and David Seymour.
Seymour, in particular, leader of the ACT Party, was loudly vociferous in his criticism of Creative New Zealand for using taxpayer money to fund Avia’s book and stage show, leading to some truly vile harassment of the poet by the bigoted dregs of Aotearoa. The ACT Party made it part of its arts, culture and heritage policy to review Creative New Zealand’s operation, lest they should fund other expressions by PoC of their experience of racism and late colonialism that might hurt Pākehā feelings.
Of course, such interference would be easier said than done given that Creative New Zealand is ringfenced by its own Act of Parliament, but it did cause one to pause with disquiet over one’s tawny port and Stilton when in the 2023 election ACT became one of the parties of the new coalition government.
takahē managed to secure the necessary funding from Creative New Zealand for this year. We failed to do so last year and are therefore quite sensitive to rhetoric like that of the ACT Party, not least because we regard as sacrosanct our editorial independence and the freedom of expression of our contributors. Naturally we entirely and resolutely support Tusiata Avia’s right to receive contestable funding in the creation of work of a political nature, and not have its content wilfully misrepresented by populist demagogues.
It is to be hoped that takahē may long continue to publish art and literature, political and otherwise, unfettered by external influence. Indeed, may creativity to continue to flourish as a whole in Aotearoa, discomforting the overly comfortable, addressing the difficult, and providing a voice for those who are otherwise too frightened to speak.
Change is a constant in the arts, as in life, and this issue marks the last set of reviews curated by our longstanding Reviews Editor, Síle Mannion. Ngā mihi to Síle, from the whole team, for bringing a distinctive blend of flair and pragmatism to the role, along with a voracious appetite for variety. Her mahi engaging new reviewers and ensuring diversity of expression across the reviews leaves the department emboldened and energised.
We also have been delighted to have two guest editors for this edition – Anna Scaife as Essays Editor and Richard Pamatatau as Poetry Editor. Ngā mihi nui to Richard and Anna, for your hard work and care with submissions and the careful curation of these sections of the magazine. Richard has put together a note to readers about his selection which are below.
Please read and enjoy takahē 110.
Andrew Paul Wood
Art and Comic Editor
A Note from the T110 Guest Poetry Editor
The poems submitted for this issue of takahē are testament to the courage of writers: first to write, and second to make themselves visible to an outside eye charged with making the selection which appears here.
It is a task founded on respect, process, trepidation and joy.
For this issue, T110, I read the submissions three times. The first reading was a delicious time of digging into the work and enjoying it without expectation, enjoying the ideas, the poetics, the words, the rhythm, the structure, the care—the elements that make a poem a poem.
The second reading was a chance to attend the work and make a longlist of poems from which I would eventually make the final selection. That’s when, for me, I needed to make a table of poems on the longlist with notes about what I was looking for and why.
Finally, after leaving the poems for a week, there was another read of those on the longlist before making the choices you see in front of you.
Originally I was thinking around themes, ideas that were aligned, but as this selection is not an anthology that is founded on a theme (which was my original intent) I went with what worked for me. It was the poetry that spoke to me and allowed me to settle on this list.
It was not easy to leave poems behind. As someone who has submitted to journals and been both accepted and rejected I acknowledge the joy and the sadness. I circle back to my opening sentence: The poems submitted for this issue of takahē are testament to the courage of writers: first to write, and second to make themselves visible to an outside eye charged with making the selection which appears here.
—Richard Pamatatau