We inhabit a world

All around us

All time

Everything changing

Renewing

Things

Transforming

Transmuting

To one evolving form

Giving up essence

Literature loves translations fed by every exuberance

Every heave

Every age

Translations,

Poetry: words without borders

It is time to confront ownership of past good

Remembering darker episodes

Embrace and own that history

We are a nation

Culturally

Linguistically 

Superdiverse 

Ethnicities

Languages

Confronted with realities of an incongruent world?

The poem: Create dangerously.

Expanding Horizons was the theme to Te Tai Tokerau’s 2019 writer’s festival, NorthWrite.

I attended a session led by poet Piet Nieuwland called ‘Adventures in transmutation: A conversation about poetry’.

We were Maori, European, Pasifika, Australian, Italian, Dutch and Chinese.

The questions proposed were: where are we heading in terms of language, and as New Zealand writers, what is our ethical responsibility in this bicultural country?

We were divided in to small groups and asked to write a poem on the topic. Our group passed the notes around and blanked out words. Once we came to a final version, I then edited this again at home by blanking out further words and playing around with line breaks, and this poem is the result.

I think it speaks aptly to answer the questions we asked 🙂

Thanks to Stuart Rankin for the use of your pic.

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