Poetry in Place
Celebrating National Poetry Day in August 2022
Poetry in Place is a collaboration between Te Toka Tumai Auckland (ADHB) and the University of Auckland, sponsored by the A+ Trust.
This installation of 24 poems across Auckland City Hospital, Starship, and Greenlane Clinical Center is an exciting opportunity to showcase some of Aotearoa’s best poets, whilst providing a moment for patients, whānau and staff to pause, reflect and engage with creative work. This moment of positive distraction is an occasion to sit in the wairua in a way we don’t often get to here, celebrating the intersection of creativity and healing.
The poems have been curated to consider elements of the human experience we often traverse in a hospital context, giving a language to the breadth of life, joy, pain, resilience and every-dayness experienced here.
We are grateful to the poets below who have engaged with this mahi, and for the beauty brought forth through their words.
Featured Poets
Art Nahill
Art Nahill is an American-born general physician and poet who has published extensively on both sides of the equator including The Harvard Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Landfall, Takahe, and Poetry NZ. He is working on his fourth book of poetry entitled Lessons From the Drought reflecting on his personal journey through lockdown and the pandemic.
The poems are from a collection entitled Waiatarua: Reflections from an urban wetland, which is comprised of poems and photographs inspired by the Waiatarua Reserve in Meadowbank/St. John’s and published with a generous grant from the Orakei Local Board of Auckland Council. The book is an homage of sorts to the importance of a rapidly vanishing resource: urban green spaces and all profits from sales of the book are being donated back to the Reserve.
My website is twohemispherespoetry.com and my Facebook page is Two Hemispheres Poetry.
Courtney Sina Meredith
University of Auckland Young Alumna of the Year 2021 Courtney Sina Meredith, is a distinguished author whose work delves into issues such as racism, sexism and poverty and draws on her Samoan roots. She is the Director of Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust, and Co-owner of MyGeneTree - the world's leading platform for turning ancestry into art.
Courtney has been awarded prestigious creative opportunities around the globe. Heralding an era of niu leadership, she has a strong focus on giving voice to the contemporary experiences of Pacific women. She lives in Aukliani with visual artist partner Janet Lilo and their children.
Cybella Maffit
Cybella Maffitt is a student studying English Literature. Her work appears in Starling, Signals, Flash Frontier, Telescope, and A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand. Many of her poems are written in honour of her grandmother, Khen, who passed in 2017. Khen was not a poet, but she was a good cook. We are still retelling the stories she’d share with us in her kitchen all these years later.
Hinemoana Baker
Hinemoana Baker (Ngāti Raukawa-ki-te-Tonga, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kiritea) is an award-winning Māori and Pākehā writer and performer. She is primarily a poet and musician, though she has also written and performed for theatre, film and experimental sound work. Her latest collection of poetry, ‘Funkhaus’, was shortlisted in 2021 for ‘The Ockhams’, New Zealand’s national book awards. Hinemoana currently lives in Berlin and is writing her doctorate in Cultural Studies at Potsdam University.
You can find more about Hinemoana and her work on her website.
Johanna Emeney
Johanna Emeney is a teacher and poet from Auckland. She has written three poetry collections, the latest of which, Felt, was published in 2021 by Massey University Press. She has also written a book about poetry, patients and doctors called The Rise of Autobiographical Medical Poetry and the Medical Humanities (Ibidem, 2018). Her latest work is a collaboration with Sarah Laing called Sylvia and the Birds, a book for young people about The Bird Lady, Sylvia Durrant, and how we, too, can help to save our taonga birdlife.
Dr. Karlo Mila (MNZM)
A long time ago, before Karlo had any qualifications, awards or published poetry, Karlo had some frightening and life-changing experiences that landed her in hospital. Being in a psychiatric ward – more than once – was something that she lived to write about. After being given a number of different diagnoses, Karlo went on to publish three poetry books. Her first book won the best first book of poetry at the national book awards in 2006. She completed a PhD and then a postdoctoral fellowship focusing on mental health and wellbeing among Pacific peoples. In particular, she explored Pacific indigenous knowledge approaches to healing and developed an intervention to try and help and resource other people who went through her experiences. This is now a leadership programme called “Mana Moana” at Leadership New Zealand. Karlo lives in Auckland with her three sons. She is of Tongan (Kolofo'ou, Ofu) and Pākehā descent. Her most recent book is called Goddess Muscle published by Huia Publishers in 2020.
Kiri Piahana-Wong
Kiri Piahana-Wong (Ngāti Ranginui) is a poet and editor, and she is the publisher at Anahera Press. Her poems have appeared in over fifty journals and anthologies, most recently in A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand, Ora Nui 4, tātai whetū: seven Māori women poets in translation, Solid Air: Australian and New Zealand Spoken Word and Set Me on Fire (Doubleday, UK). Her first poetry collection, Night Swimming, was released in 2013; a second book, Tidelines, is due out next year. Kiri lives in Mt Roskill with her partner and three-year-old son.
Hinerangi’s story
Hinerangi was an early tupuna of Te Kawerau a Maki (tangata whenua of the area in Auckland now known as Waitakere City, traditionally known as Hikurangi). Hinerangi married a young Karekare chieftan and settled with him there until an aituā (tragic accident) befell him. Her husband went fishing at the southern end of Te Unuhanga o Rangitoto (also known as Mercer Bay) with two friends. This spot was named Te Kawa Rimurapa (reef of the bull kelp), and was a popular, but dangerous, fishing spot. On this particular day Hinerangi’s husband and his friends were washed from the rocks and swept away. Hinerangi, inconsolable and heartbroken, sat on the headland above, scanning the sea, and refused to leave. Eventually she died there. Her sad face is now said to be outlined in the rocks below the headland on which she sat. This headland is now known as Te Āhua o Hinerangi (the likeness of Hinerangi).
Kiri sought, and was given, permission by Te Kawerau a Maki to retell this story in her poem ‘Hinerangi’
Give me an ordinary day
Kiri wrote this poem in response to her father’s death in a tragic accident in March 2020, just before the first lockdown.
Maryana Garcia
Maryana is a journalist, and poet fascinated by everyday miracles. Her poetry has been published in A Clear Dawn, Ko Aotearoa Tatou, Takahe, Poetry New Zealand, and Takahē . Maryana also posts word and life experiments on Instagram as @ripagepoet. You can find her portfolio online here.
Mohamed Hassan
Mohamed Hassan is an award-winning author, poet and journalist from Auckland and Cairo. His first poetry work National Anthem was a finalist at the 2020 Ockham NZ Book Awards, and his new essay collection How to be a Bad Muslim is published by Penguin Random House. You can find him on Instagram @el.sayyed or through his website.
Nina Mingya Powles
Nina Mingya Powles is a writer, poet and maker from Aotearoa, currently living in London. Her poetry collection Magnolia 木蘭 (2020) was a finalist in the Ockham Book Awards and the Forward Prize. She is also the author of several zines and pamphlets, as well as a food memoir, Tiny Moons (2020) and a collection of essays, Small Bodies of Water (2021).
Her website is ninapowles.com and her handle is @ninamingya on Twitter and Instagram.
Paula Morris
Photo by Colleen Maria Lenihan
Paula Morris (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Manuhiri) is an award-winning fiction writer and essayist from West Auckland. She directs the Master of Creative Writing programme at the University of Auckland. Her recent books include: Shining Land: Looking for Robin Hyde with photographer Haru Sameshima and the anthology A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand, co-edited with Alison Wong.
The St James Theatre has been a landmark all my life, still standing (just) while so many other old theatres have been pulled down. A few years ago, restoration began because developers were planning some vast apartment building around it. The development ran out of money for their glass tower and so did the restoration. I was able to visit to see what remains, and to hear what the earthquake-proofing excavations had uncovered—pieces of a much older Auckland, deep below the surface. I'm always interested in what lies beneath in our city, like the Waihorotiu Stream that ran from the K Road ridge down to the sea. In Auckland we tend to brick up, destroy or build over our past, but remnants are still there, under our feet.
Renee Liang 梁文蔚
Renee Liang, a second-generation Cantonese New Zealander, blends her vocations of medicine and arts. A paediatrician with special interest in community and youth health, she is also Asian Theme Lead on landmark longitudinal research study Growing Up In NZ. As senior NZ artist, Renee explores the migrant experience; she wrote, produced and nationally toured eight plays; made operas, musicals and community arts programmes; her poems, essays and short stories are studied from primary to tertiary level. She was honoured to be made MNZM in 2018 for Services to the Arts.
More information about Renee can be found at Read NZ and her book When We Remember to Breathe is available in paperback and e-book.
Selina Tusitala Marsh
Selina Tusitala Marsh (ONZM, FRSNZ) is the former New Zealand Poet Laureate and has performed poetry for primary schoolers and presidents (Obama), queers and Queens (HRH Elizabeth II). She has published three critically acclaimed collections of poetry, Fast Talking PI (2009), Dark Sparring(2013), Tightrope (2017) and an award-winning graphic memoir series, Mophead (Auckland University Press, 2019) and Mophead TU (2020).
You can find out more information on Selina’s website.
Tusiata Avia
Leading Pacific poet, performer and children’s author Tusiata Avia has travelled the world performing her award winning one-woman poetry show based on her 2004 collection Wild Dogs Under My Skirt. Her latest collection The Savage Coloniser Book (VUP, 2020) won the Mary and Peter Biggs prize for poetry at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, making Tusiata the first Pacific woman to win this prize in the Awards’ 53-year history. Tusiata’s other poetry collections are Bloodclot (VUP, 2009), and Fale Aitu │ Spirit House (VUP, 2016) which was shortlisted for the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Writer Nafanua Kersel describes Tusiata’s poetry as ‘a full-body plunge in winter seas. It’s breathtaking, skin tingling and teeth rattling. I feel alive.’
Recently Tusiata was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to poetry and the arts in the 2020 Queens Birthday Honours. She has also held a number of residencies including the Fulbright Pacific Writer’s Fellowship at University of Hawai’i (2005) and the Ursula Bethel Writer in Residence at University of Canterbury (2010) and was the 2013 recipient of the Janet Frame Literary Trust Award. She taught creative writing and performing arts at the Manukau Institute of Technology.
You can learn more about Tusiata and her work on the ANZL website.
Vanessa Mae Crofskey
Vanessa Mei Crofskey is an artist and writer based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington. She spends a lot of her time watching anime and playing video games. Her poetry has appeared in a lot of fun places.
I wrote this poem thinking about my own family, and how hard it was, at first, to have a conversation about mental health with my mum.
It can be really frustrating to communicate with your parents when you come from different cultures and backgrounds, even when you are both really trying. I was taught early on to be proudly independent and never to admit that I was struggling in life, and especially not with my mental health. On both my Pākehā and my Chinese side, it was a taboo subject to talk about. This closely guarded secret that everyone kept.
For more poems by Vanessa, check out AUP New Poets 6.
Wen-Juenn Lee
Wen-Juenn is a poet and editor who lives on unceded Wurundjeri land (Melbourne). In her writing, she is interested in gaps, leaks and spillage; in the things that create and betray boundaries. Leaks often take the form of place, memory, and the body in her work. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Meanjin, Cordite Poetry Review, Landfall, Southerly, Scum Mag and Going Down Swinging. She previously served as a poetry editor at Voiceworks. You can find more of her work on Instagram @wenjuenn.
'A love letter to my mother: a work in progress was first published in Landfall (No. 235, May 2018)'.
Location: Level 5 public spaces corridor towards the orange lifts, Building 01, Auckland City Hospital Grafton Campus
Te Toka Tumai staff can access a walking guide on the intranet.