photos from matahiwi and hastings

Te Matau a Maui (The Hook of Maui), the wharenui at Matahiwi Marae with carved representations of Maui’s family on the paepae (forecourt)

Maui hooking Te Ika, the big fish of Aotearoa New Zealand

John Buck addresses manuhiri and tangata whenua at Matahiwi

Guests with Jacob Scott at Matahiwi

Penny Carnaby, National Librarian, and Hon Judith Tizard with the two tokotoko

Michele Leggott with matua tokotoko and Te Kikorangi, the blue stick


Jacob Scott and poets at the mouth of the Tukituki river

Pipi Café – poets and poetry-loving people

Same again, another table

Pipi Café – more poets

I Say Te Mata: Jack Ross at the Hawke’s Bay Opera House Assembly Room

I Say Te Mata: Selina Tusitala Marsh

I Say Te Mata: poets and tokotoko

laureates, locals and out of town poets in Hawkes Bay

Drums are beating, email is running hot and phonecalls are criss-crossing the land as the folk at the National Library coordinate the first Laureate event for 2008 in Hawkes Bay. NatLib, Te Mata Estate Wines, Matahiwi Marae, Scott Design, Creative Hastings and the Hawkes Bay Opera House are all working towards Saturday 23 February when the new matua tokotoko (carved speaking stick) will be presented at Matahiwi Marae in a ceremony that will also honour the achievements of Hone Tuwhare. Laureate Elizabeth Smither will be there, as will a host of readers and speakers with words, stories and songs for Hone. This is Poetry at the Pa, Matahiwi-style, 10 am to 2 pm.

In the evening the focus shifts to the Opera House in Hastings for I Say Te Mata: Poets at the Assembly Room. Keith Thorsen and I will co-host, starting at 8 pm with a glass of Te Mata and processing through the line-up of poets in town for the event. Some young Hawkes Bay talent should give laureates and others a taste of the poetic future and we’re expecting to have a very good time indeed. Anyone left standing will be directed to Dancing on the Green, running till midnight at nearby Kohupatiki Marae.

So we’re fine-tuning our offerings and packing toothbrushes and sleeping bags here in Auckland in anticipation of the Great Poetic Hikoi to the Bay. Some are flying, others driving; but we’ll all be there as the action gets underway. Look, isn’t that the National Library bus pulling in from Wellington with a bunch of poetry-loving librarians hanging out the windows?