The Waiheke Island resident says she is very much looking forward to her first visit to Whanganui and visiting Paige's Book Gallery, having met proprietor Lesley Stead at a poetry reading in Auckland.
"I like to run and I'm told by a friend who has lived there that I should run along the river and head up into the bush."
Tusitala Marsh describes her poems as "paths between cultures and world views".
With a lineage that includes Samoan, Tuvaluan, English, Scottish and French, the poet says she calls out incidents of racism but always tries to do it with aroha.
While waiting to read her poem at Westminster Abbey last year, she encountered a baron who declined to shake her hand and she later wrote an amusing and eloquent account of the incident.
"His hands remain knotted on his lap. His fingers look like stubby, orange tubers of turmeric, lined and uneven," she wrote.
Tusitala Marsh was the first person of Pacific descent to graduate with a PhD in English from the University of Auckland, where she now lectures in creative writing and Māori and Pacific literary studies.
"Everyone has the right to write" is a mantra she teaches her students and tells herself when she needs to.
The poet says being named Poet Laureate and succeeding fellow poet CK Stead is a "wonderful affirmation of my mana".
Selina Tusitala Marsh will perform a selection of her work and talks at the concert chamber of the Whanganui War Memorial Centre on Friday, October 6, from 1.30-2.30pm. She will also join the Poetry and Place panel discussion on Sunday, October 8. Early-bird bookings for the Literary Festival are available at the Royal Wanganui Opera House royaloperahouse.co.nz
