Hone Tuwhare (1922-16 January 2008) was a noted New Zealand poet of Māori ancestry. He is closely associated with The Catlins in the Otago region of New Zealand, where he lived for the latter part of his life.



"... a lovely old man who
began life as a boilermaker but
wrote a bit in his spare time who kept
on making poetic comments, who
travelled the world, acclaimed by
Academia, but never lost the common touch,
who was appointed New Zealand Poet Laureate
and now he has died aged eighty five.

I was so sure he was immortal."

Waiata



( waiata is a member of the pk list and she is a fine poet. she let us know of this man's passing today. sad to say, and embarrassing in a way, most of us had never heard of the man til this morning.we missed out but perhaps now we can come to know him thru his poetry. the poetry world tends to be, at times, very much segregated, for my lack of a better word. it can be very insular. geographically as well as type wise.that is one reason i am grateful to the pk. it is international.
me, i'm eclectic in almost everything and the more i can learn and embrace, the better. i'm sad for this man's passing, sadder still that it took his death and lovely waiata to let us find him.)





A selection of Hone’s poems



No Ordinary Sun
Tree let your arms fall:
raise them not sharply in supplication
to the bright enhaloed cloud.
Let your arms lack toughness and
resilience for this is no mere axe
to blunt nor fire to smother.

Your sap shall not rise again
to the moon’s pull.
No more incline a deferential head
to the wind’s talk, or stir
to the tickle of coursing rain.

Your former shagginess shall not be
wreathed with the delightful flight
of birds nor shield
nor cool the ardour of unheeding
lovers from the monstrous sun.

Tree let your naked arms fall
nor extend vain entreaties to the radiant ball.
This is no gallant monsoon’s flash,
no dashing trade wind’s blast.
The fading green of your magic
emanations shall not make pure again
these polluted skies . . . for this
is no ordinary sun.

O tree
in the shadowless mountains
the white plains and
the drab sea floor
your end at last is written.
Hotere
When you offer only three
vertical lines precisely drawn
and set into a dark pool of lacquer
it is a visual kind of starvation:

and even though my eyeballs
roll up and over to peer inside
myself, when I reach the beginning
of your eternity I say instead: hell
let’s have another feed of mussels

Like, I have to think about it, man.

When you stack horizontal lines
into vertical columns which appear
to advance, recede, shimmer and wave
like exploding packs of cards
I merely grunt and say: well, if it
is not a famine, it’s a feast

I have to roll another smoke, man

But when you score a superb orange
circle on a purple thought-base
I shake my head and say: hell, what
is this thing called aroha

Like, I’m euchred, man. I’m eclipsed?
Toroa ~ Albatross
Day and night endlessly you have flown effortless of wing
over chest-expanding oceans far from land.
Do you switch on an automatic pilot, close your eyes
in sleep, Toroa?

On your way to your homeground at Otakou Heads
you tried to rest briefly on the Wai-te-mata
but were shot at by ignorant people. Crippled.
You found a resting place at Whanga-nui-a-Tara;
found space at last to recompose yourself.

Now, without skin and flesh to hold you together
the division of your aerodynamic parts lies whitening,
licked clean by sun and air and water. Children will
discover narrow corridors of airiness between,
the suddenness of bulk. Naked, laugh in the gush
and ripple — the play of light on water.

You are not alone, Toroa. A taniwha once tried
to break out of the harbour for the open sea. He failed.
He is lonely. From the top of the mountain nearby he
calls to you: Haeremai, haeremai, welcome home, traveller.

Your head tilts, your eyes open to the world.

To a Mäori figure cast in bronze
outside the Chief Post Office, Auckland
I hate being stuck up here, glaciated, hard all over
and with my guts removed: my old lady is not going
to like it

I’ve seen more efficient scarecrows in seedbed
nurseries. Hell, I can’t even shoo the pigeons off

Me: all hollow inside with longing for the marae on
the cliff at Kohimarama, where you can watch the ships
come in curling their white moustaches

Why didn’t they stick me next to Mickey Savage?
‘Now then,’ he was a good bloke
Maybe it was a Tory City Council that put me here

They never consulted me about naming the square
It’s a wonder they never called it: Hori-in-gorge-atbottom-
of-hill. Because it is like that: a gorge,
with the sun blocked out, the wind whistling around
your balls (your balls mate) And at night, how I
feel for the beatle-girls with their long-haired
boyfriends licking their frozen finger-chippy lips
hopefully. And me again beetling

my tent eyebrows forever, like a brass monkey with
real worries: I mean, how the hell can you welcome
the Overseas Dollar, if you can’t open your mouth
to poke your tongue out, eh?

If I could only move from this bloody pedestal I’d
show the long-hairs how to knock out a tune on the
souped-up guitar, my mere quivering, my taiaha held
at the high port. And I’d fix the ripe kotiro too
with their mini-piupiu-ed bums twinkling: yeah!

Somebody give me a drink: I can’t stand it

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