Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Hone Tuwhare

To Kath

I like ya smokes, woman

They kind of ease the
knot in the belly?

Like, before I go on
and read out the boiling
in the gut. And

when the smoke swirls
like dreams, I come
easy. Oh sure...

Ah, Kath, the meeting
is okay. And now
you've only got two
left!

Time I moved on.



New Zealand's "most distinguished Maori poet writing in English" Hone Tuwhare.
He passed away on 16th January 2008.

From a Poetry Reading in 1977 when I was at Otago University and he asked me for a cigarette in exchange for a poem.
I got the better end of the deal.

4 comments:

M-H said...

Kia Ora! Thanks Kate.

Xeompho said...

Kia ora, indeed! That is really a marvellous story to own. I would recommend taking it to a university library for advice about preservation - or maybe just emailing one. They deal with old manuscripts etc all the time. Hone Tuwhare is the kind of poet who really knew about punctuation - love that question-mark!

Jenn said...

That's amazing. Thanks for sharing!

Dharmadeva said...

Hone Tuwhare fans can download this slide show:

http://www.ways-ahead.net/slideshows/Hone%20Tuwhare%20-%20poetry.ppt