Star Waka

Poems by Robert Sullivan

Robert Sullivan

• Publisher: Auckland University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781775581598
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Published on the cusp of the new millennium, Maori poet Robert Sullivan's third book of poems, Star Waka, explores themes of journeying and navigation, moving back and forth in time and focus to confront colonisation, contemporary political issues and personal questions of family and identity. It came with some strings attached: each poem had to feature either a star, a waka (canoe) or the ocean. Within these parameters, and in 2001 lines, Sullivan creates 100 poems that, he says, themselves function like a waka: ‘members of the crew change, the rhythm and the view changes – it is subject to the laws of nature'.

x Goldie (1)

he pads around downtown

spots the Toi Tamaki

Heritage Gallery’s picture

of the starving lost waka crew –

so realistic, ‘on the spot’ –

proof of early

anthropological puddings

just look at it,

where are the women,

the crops, tools, material

for settlement?

hey they were paddling

round the ocean

when they bumped

into Aotearoa

and were canvassed –

must be their account

xi

he and I suggest ways of narrating a story of waves

a billion billion of them to borrow a phrase

borrowed from the infinite numbers available

in telling an infinite story lapping the shapes

formed round land – a set of keys on a lap

landing there by mistake – a slip

and it all piles into the ocean mistook

for a reclamation declaimed by the tumbling

mumbling tongues of salinity

at a beach which heads for a context

a breach into the canon of beaches

writing in sand obscured by puffs

and gulls and tide’s own cursive

curling lickity ups and lollipop downs

through the otherwise metronomic

glassiness then swelling then rough

to high waves and back down

to the ground or to the rocks again

and again the saline solution

xii Independence Day

We hear a lot in Auckland these days

about the cost of the viaduct basin

the benefits accrued from the Cup challenge

various economic analyses: tourists

property exposure capital: the Americans

are really doing their homework

before they decide to colonise us

(but this time I really mean most kiwis

i.e. 85.1% of the population according

to the 1996 census) it doesn’t mean

much to the rest it’s still going to be

a colony

xiii Rough Cuts

the strokes slow, start cutting the drink

becalmed by tired arms

bi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Note
• He karakia timatanga
• i
• ii
• iii About some of the crew
• iv 2140AD
• v Honda Waka
• vi Feelings
• vii Reconnaissance
• viii No
• ix
• x Goldie (1)
• xi
• xii Independence Day
• xiii Rough Cuts
• xiv Ka huri ahau ki te reo o te ao pouri
• xv Sullivan Whanau
• Waka 16 Kua wheturangitia koe
• xvii Some definitions and a note on orthography
• xviii Similitude
• xix
• xx a whakapapa construction
• xxi Te ao marama I
• xxii Te ao marama II
• xxiii Formats (1)
• xxiv Formats (2)
• xxv power/powerlessness
• xxvi
• xxvii
• xxviii Hooked
• Waka 29 waka taua
• xxx
• xxxi
• xxxii herenga waka
• xxxiii
• xxxiv Goldie (2)
• xxxv
• xxxvi
• 37
• 38 fleurs de lis
• 39 A wave
• 40
• 41
• 42
• 43
• 44
• 45
• 46
• 47
• 48 (Bright 1)
• 49 (environment 1)
• 50
• 51
• 52
• 53
• 54 waka rorohiko
• 55 Araiteuru
• Waka 56 A Double-Hulled Waka
• Waka 57 El Nino Waka
• Waka 58 Waitangi Day
• Waka 59 Elsdon Best
• Waka 60 Dead Reckoning
• Waka 61 Fragment
• Waka 62 A narrator’s note
• Waka 63 Venus
• Waka 64
• Waka 65
• Waka 66 Hokule‘a
• Waka 67 from We the Navigators
• Waka 68
• Waka 69 Kupe
• Waka 70
• Waka 71
• Waka 72 Hawaikinui’s 1985 journey
• Waka 73 Gone fishing
• Waka 74 Sea anchor
• Waka 75 A storm
• Waka 76
• Waka 77
• Waka 78 An historical line
• Waka 79
• Waka 80
• Waka 81 A cup of tea
• Waka 82 Te ao marama III
• Waka 83
• Waka 84
• Waka 85
• Waka 86
• Waka 87
• Waka 88
• Waka 89
• Waka 90 Te ao marama IV
• Waka 91 A Feast
• Waka 92
• Waka 93
• Waka 94
• Waka 95
• Waka 96
• Waka 97
• Waka 98
• Waka 99
• Waka 100
• Also by Robert Sullivan
• Copyright