Restoring one’s roots, environmental degradation, and a nonagenarian reflects in the latest New Zealand poetry books.
Plastic by Stacey Teague (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $30)
In her debut collection of poetry, Stacey Teague has a powerful and compelling narrative to present. With mainly Māori forebears, she was brought up in a family that did not speak Māori or take part in Māori events. So, her family were teased as “Ngāti Plastic”, defined as “Māori who do not know te reo, tikanga or their whakapapa”.
Teague’s quest is to explore her identity, a hard task when “I didn’t have a Māori name; I had red curly hair and freckles”. But she is determined to find a way to integrate with Māoritanga. Having set up her situation, Teague launches into many and varied free-verse poems under the headings Plastic and Paratiki. She has childhood nightmares. She questions her sexuality. Her poem Toitū te whenua, toitū te tangata probes the loss of Māori land to colonisers. Tupuna Wahine traces the lives and legacy of three Māori women (presumably forebears) and how they fared between 1830 and 1939 – in effect giving a history of how Māori women both endured but also faced different challenges. And ultimately, she comes closer to her spiritual home, whakapapa restored. Among other merits, Plastic is clear and straightforward and should be accessible to a wide readership.
Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock by Robin Peace (Cuba Press, $25)
Many current poets have written about colonialism and the destruction of indigenous culture. They usually write about the confiscation of Māori lands, racial prejudice and suppression of the Māori language. Robin Peace does note these things, but takes a different approach. The retired geographer, teacher and academic is most concerned about the environment. For her, the primal sin of colonialism was the introduction of foreign animals and plants.
The title poem concerns seeds brought back from India and becoming invasive lawn weeds in New Zealand. Likewise Cinnamon songs concerns those imported destructive pests, possums. A number of her poems deal with types of grass appropriate or inappropriate for this country, and she looks at human-made erosion in a group of poems, especially in Hill song and Fourteen quarried away.
But Peace is not a protester only. Some of her poems are simply detailed observations of how creatures function, as in her eloquent Grace notes, describing wild ducks descending. And Swamp witness recalls a child’s wonder and delight in first seeing an estuary and swamp and all their colour and fullness. Genuinely lyrical.
Collected Poems by Fleur Adcock: Expanded Edition (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $50)
In 2019, Fleur Adcock: Collected Poems was published, gathering together all the poet’s work from the 1960s to 2019 – a formidable but very readable volume of 534 pages. Adcock’s verse was by turns serious, erudite and witty as she dealt with her years in New Zealand and her many more years as an expatriate in England. Adcock is now 90. To celebrate this milestone, Te Herenga Waka University Press has produced an expanded edition, adding 61 more pages of poetry.
Most of the addition is taken up with her 2021 collection, The Mermaid’s Purse, but there are also 20 never-before-published, labelled “New Poems 2024″ and, of course, they are filled with old age. Adcock shows she is not abashed by it. The first of the new poems, Stint, concerns the 1000-year-old sibyl who wants to die. The last of them, Being Ninety, is almost jaunty, counting off three other literary figures of her age with death drawing nearer. She is often deadly serious, but her wry wit still shines.
