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Pleas for Te Reo in poetry collection

27/6/2023

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te pāhikahikatanga 
Vaughan Rapatahana


Whatever happened to untamed, un-Agent-filtered, un-English-language-obliged literature? It’s here. Little book, great leap-in-the-right-direction.
     Splendidly, it starts with a quadruple battery against the tyranny of English and pleas for a Te Reo/Māori readership:
an introductory poem (‘Stay alive/I give you a book in Te Reo/Māori/open your eyes/open your ears ...’);
a Lachmann quotation (‘There is no direct substitution of one language for another ... different languages express a different way of seeing the world’);
an Introduction (‘I now write in my first language ... because I want to fully express everything in my mind, my heart, in my soul ... The English language is crammed full of the subject matter and cultural customs of the lands of Britain ...’);
and an in-your-face first poem (‘Fuck/I can’t exist in this language any more/it defeats me ... give me an escape from this prison of English’).

     What follows is 120 pages of Te Reo poems, with accompanying ‘versions’ in English. ‘I have translated these poems into the English language, but not in a ‘perfect’ translation. It’s impossible! Thus the title of Incommensurability /te pāhikahikatanga’.
     Readers who know and have followed Vaughan Rapatahana’s poetry, through, for example, ‘ternion’, ‘ngā whakamatuatanga/interludes’, and ‘ināianei/now’, will recognise much of the contents – love poems (‘ki te tūāraki’, ‘he ruri ngāwari’, ‘he papakupu o aroha’ ‘kua tekau ngā tau tonu’), poems of mourning for a lost son and broken families (‘kāore he mātāmua’, ‘ko taku whanāu’, ‘te ngākau pōuri o te huaketo’), poems of belonging (VR lives variously in Aotearoa, Hong Kong SAR and the Philippines) (‘āe te henga’, ‘te taiao Aotearoa’, ‘ko aotearoa’, ‘Orongomai’, ko taku whare tēnei’), what might be called ‘nature’ poems, with their enviromental edge (‘ngā wāna’, ‘ngā rākau’, ‘he mōtaeatea: huringa āhuarangi’) ...
     but always, and amongst, lie the explosions of anger and independence that mark the committance to a language, culture and way of seeing that has been overborne, murdered, ignored, sidelined, snuffed out, embraced-so-as-to-suffocate, and had its history distorted and hushed.
     We read, we wait, and we get ... at p.44 comes a gentle claim for Māori ‘ownership’ (‘aotearoa ... a normal name before an abnormal name/a first people before strangers’); in ‘kerikeri’ urgency and injustice grow (‘ignore the words of this white person/it’s time to get real for some white people/real like the original inhabitants of this town’); in ‘ko te tāima mō he panoni nui’ the consequences of white culture’s/language’s take-over are laid out (‘there are many youths suiciding/too many Māori youths/it is time for new thoughts’); pleas for Te Reo in ‘ngā ruri Māori (‘where’s our Māori poems/where’s our words?/not here/not here’) and ‘e pīkau ana ahau he riri’; and in ‘Rangiaowhia, 1864’ (‘who knows about the murders at Rangiaowhia?/the terrible deed of the pākehā/the massacre by the white men/we all should know’) and ‘te pakanga nui o waikato anō?’ (‘rangiriri, rangiaowhia, ōrākau/who knows about these?’) the naked facts of a history tidied away crackle onto the pages. 

     As it began, the collection ends with a section of ‘notes’ that contain a fourfold battery on the dominance of English. First, a rational exposition of translating his own poetry into English, reluctant but unavoidable in many ways (‘The ‘solution’? To write in one’s indigenous language as much as practicable and to hope, to expect, that readers and listeners aspire to learn it too ...’); followed by a poem oringally written in English that also ‘critiqued this tongue’ – ‘tongues’ (p.127)
                            no one around here speaks english.
                     not because they cannot
                     but because they don’t need to.   

This is a many-levelled poem that tackles the issue forthrightly: clearly VR knows ‘other languages’ (and other languages than English and Māori) – there is no excuse for us. 
The third concluding shot is ‘aroha mai, apirana’, in which ‘Everything I have been saying, then, is summarised in the final poem’ –
                            let’s murder this marauder once and for all
                            ko mate, mate, mate me kāore he ora mō tēnei arero
and finally, the personal struggle, every day, to ‘supplicate its fancy frissons/into brute submission’ (it’s being English’s) and the smiling note
                            today    i   maybe
                            won
     It is not, however, the wholly admirable fighting of a good fight, that makes ‘te pāhikahikatanga’ such an important and beautiful collection: it is the telling mix of the personal and the public, the different sorrows and contentments, explosions that are not only political but also from daily life, gentleness and humour (even in the combative poems), and the final feeling, to an English reader/speaker, that they are not the rule of thought, expression, feeling, culture and awareness, nor of the expression of these in poetry – that there is a whole world of other people going about their writing and their lives unfiltered by that most awful of literary Agents – the English language. 
                            screw the flag of England ... 
                            a big bare-arse to this flag
                            two fingers to this symbol
                            of injustice...
                            I want a flag 
                            for all the people
                        ​    of Aotearoa.

Review by John Gallas
Title: te pāhikahikatanga
Author: Vaughan Rapatahana
Publisher:  Flying Islands Books, Australia
ISBN: 978-0-6455503-3-7
RRP: $10
Available: https://flyingislandspocketpoets.com.au/product/te-pahikahikatanga-incommensurabilty-by-vaughan-rapatahana/
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Great characters in new novel

20/6/2023

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Double Jeopardy
by Stef Harris

 
The front cover demands “Move over Jack Reacher” and never having delved into those tales, I can make no comparison.     However, I can say that no comparison is necessary as this book stands tall on its own merit.
    I quickly found the style to be extremely cinematic which was refreshing and made sense when I finished the final chapter and digested the author’s bio. This style enables the story to unfold scene by scene, build by build and create an engaging read. The ebb and flow of tension is nicely balanced using this technique and just as I began to relax into some short chapters of domesticity, the tension was again rapidly reset and the chase was back on.
    Great characters, including Frank’s canine companion Dolly, are drawn convincingly and each one being an integral player in the overall story means that the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, twists and turns are believable. 
    Retired lawman, seeking revenge for wrongdoing perpetrated on a loved one by a vicious gangster is a familiar premise that some might say has been overplayed. Clint Eastwood, Liam Neeson and Ken Stott to name but a few, have portrayed some examples but somehow this novel brings a more deeply drawn and believable character into that scenario. 
    I will resist any comment on the detail of the plot, since the back cover gives just enough and any more would be too much. 
    My suggestion – read and enjoy.

Review by George Hollinsworth
Title: Double Jeopardy
Author: Stef Harris
Publisher: Quentin Wilson Publishing 
ISBN: 9781991103093
RRP: $37.50
Available: bookshops
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Engaging, convincing, contemporary thriller

14/6/2023

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The Democracy Game
by Riley Chance


This most competently-written thriller of 127,000 words in 267 pages is a welcome addition to the canon of New Zealand-based contemporary fiction. In fact, “contemporary” is surely the apposite word, for the third page discusses the aborted merger of RNZ and TVNZ, something announced only as recently as early February 2023. 
     The story unfolds against a background of rising US-style populism in NZ politics; in particular the rise of the alt-right ‘ProtectNZ ’ political party which, overtly, aims to protect “ordinary New Zealanders,” and in particular their “way of life”, from the welter of change that modern concerns such as climate change, gay rights, pandemic vaccination and organic farming require of them. Hard-nosed investigative journalist Grace Marks comes up with the conviction that the volume of protest is so ubiquitous and multi-faceted that orchestration is far more likely than coincidence as an explanation of its origins. As ‘ProtectNZ’ is the umbrella of the varied and various causes of protest, she sets out to know more about the people and influences behind an apparent “grassroots” organisation that is in the process of turning into something very different — a party that will contest the next election. Marks’ inimitable style and refusal to be intimidated create enemies, and she rapidly becomes a target for reactions that go beyond live-and-let-live. 
     At this point, a previous acquaintance re-enters her life. Marla Simmons is a renegade US ex-Secret Service operative now living in New Zealand, and her function in the story is to provide the sort of assistance, whether legal, borderline or illegal, that will both keep Marks from serious harm and assist her enquiries, for Simmons has herself suffered from covert conspiracy. Needless to say, ‘ProtectNZ’ and its charismatic head prove to have a rat or two in its pedigree, and its shadowy backers don’t hesitate to target and remove obstacles and obstructions which, but for Simmons’ timely interventions, would surely include Marks. Is this, one wonders, what populism inevitably becomes? “Find me 11,000 votes” — “Lock her up” — “Fight to reclaim your nation”. . . .all echo within the reader’s memory.
     As noted, ‘The Democracy Game’ is an engaging, convincing and contemporary piece of work set in a landscape familiar to most New Zealanders, and all the better for that, as it is for the tension-relieving efforts of Marks to introduce Simmons to the convolutions and nuances of NewZild slang. It is best understood as the second in a series, for Simmons’ involvement is a tad hard to understand without knowledge of the first book, ‘Surveillance’, for she is one step ahead of everyone all of the time yet, with no apparent means of support she’s living in NZ, buying expensive drones and summoning up cars at will.
     The author leaves no-one in doubt where he stands on issues of the day, albeit through the mouthpiece of Grace Marks, but the later stages of this thought-inducing book reveal the depth of his own thought, in noting that the only way to make democracy more effective in countering all its weaknesses is to become undemocratic. It really doesn’t matter where one stands on a continuum of protest issues ranging from John Minto to Posie Parker — in the end, all opinions are equally worthy of expression and airing, for the line separating freedom of expression from hate speech is surely drawn at incitement to break the law.
     Perhaps the last word should lie, as it so often did, with Winston Churchill’s assertion of 1947 that, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”

Review by MJ Burr
Title: The Democracy Game
Author: Riley Chance
Publisher: Copy Press Books 
ISBN: 9781991190680
RRP: $35
Available: bookshops
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Descriptions vivid and believable

6/6/2023

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Who Disturbs the Kūkupa?
by Kayleen M. Hazlehurst


It’s not easy to insert fact into a work of fiction so that it seems a natural part of the story rather than documentary. This author, though, achieves it well.
    The storyline is divided into five parts, told chronologically.
     In Part One, from 1939, a time of the mobilization of New Zealand forces to serve in WW2, we meet the Wirima family. Two brothers leave their Northland farm to join the Māori Battalion and travel with it to Egypt, then to Greece where they fight in the front line.
     In Part Two, the allied forces are driven back by the Germans and the older lad, Sonny, finds himself alone, having to find his way back to his fellow soldiers, or to safety. 
     In Part Three, Sonny continues his journey through the isles of the Cyclades, attempting to avoid enemy-held islands and to reunite with friendly forces.
     The scene then shifts to Crete where he joins the local resistance – a time of hardship and danger.  Part Five brings a perilous journey across the Mediterranean, and return to a measure of normality. Or is it? And can he settle to that?
     In each of the parts, the accounts of Sonny making his way through foreign land, are matched with segments on what is happening in the Wirima family back in Aotearoa. The two places are linked by references to birds – hence the Kūkupa of the title.
     Kayleen Hazlehurst shows much skill in taking information about places and the times and fusing it with imagination. There are full descriptions of locations, houses, and the lives of the people in many parts of Greece. Whether the author has visited these islands I have no idea, but the descriptions are detailed and vivid and more than believable.
     Likewise are the details of particular battles, given without glorifying the events. Throughout the text there are several direct comments about the futility of war – the whole story of Sonny and the Wirima family illustrates this.
     A huge amount of background research has gone into the writing of this novel and the way the facts have been combined with the human story, including effective use of te reo, has created a very admirable result.

Review by Norma D. Plum
Title: Who Disturbs the Kūkupa?
Author: Kayleen M.  Hazlehurst
Publisher: Blue Dragonfly Press
ISBN: 9780473669317
RRP: $45
Available: bookshops
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