In this pioneering anthology, two leading Maori poets and scholars collect together the major Maori poetic voices in English and let flow a wellspring of Maori poetry.

From revered established writers as well as exciting new voices, the poems in Puna Wai Korero offer a broad picture of Maori poetry in English. The voices are many and diverse: confident, angry, traditional, respectful, experimental, despairing and full of hope, expressing a range of poetic techniques and the full scope of what it is to be Maori. There are poems from all walks of life and modes of writing, laments for koro and hopes for mokopuna, celebrations of the land and anger at its abuse, retellings of myth and reclamations of history. Puna Wai Korero collects work from the many iwi and hapu of Aotearoa as well as Maori living in Australia and around the world, featuring the work of Hone Tuwhare, J. C. Sturm, Trixie Te Arama Menzies, Keri Hulme, Apirana Taylor, Roma Potiki, Hinemoana Baker, Tracey Tawhiao and others - as well as writers better known for forms other than poetry such as Witi Ihimaera, Paula Morris and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku.  Short biographies are given for each poet, and the introduction, glossary and poem dates will make this taonga of Maori poetry especially useful in schools.

About the Editors

Reina Whaitiri (Kāi Tahu) is a scholar, editor and researcher on Māori and Pacific literature; she lives in Auckland.

Robert Sullivan is the author of a number of books of poetry including Star Waka (Auckland University Press, 1999), which has gone through multiple reprints, a graphic novel and a prize-winning book of Māori legends for children. He co-edited, with Albert Wendt and Reina Whaitiri, the anthologies of Polynesian poetry in English, Whetu Moana and Mauri Ola, and an anthology of Māori poetry with Whaitiri, Puna Wai Kōrero. He has taught at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and Manukau Institute of Technology.

Reviews

Edited by Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan, this is the first anthology of Maori poetry in English. With almost eighty poets included, with work ranging from traditional modernist poetry to slam poetry, this is a poetical soup − or, more fittingly perhaps, a boil-up. - Elizabeth Morton, NZ Booksellers

...the poems collected here will provoke inspiration, debate, reflection and response from New Zealanders of all backgrounds, and thus Puna Wai Kōrero also makes a serious contribution to the future development of poetry in Aotearoa New Zealand. - Sue Wootton, Takahe

Puna Wai Korero is a moving feast. - Paula Green, NZ Poetry Shelf