Strands, by Keri Hulme
This, the second book of poetry by the author of the bone people, is hard to find but worth the search. From Keri Hulme's own description of the book:
Describe strands? O, fishing and death. Angry women/angry earth chants, and funny inserts/insights/snippets/snappings. Winesongs of fifteen years maturation. Plait together land and air and sea: interweave the eye and the word and the ear. Show people that I take life seriously, but not so seriously as to ruin my chance of getting out of it alive...I am a strand-dweller in reality, a strand-loper of sorts -- nau mai! Come share a land, a lagoon, a mind, a glass...
A sample:
Saying Nothing/In the End
(Lines to be put on a gravestone)
E, wrap me in the black bark cloth
strew kokowai
and let there be white bones
between my teeth
(fish or birds, god knows
and I'll no longer care)
and a paua-hafted hook
laid handily
to show my trade
--catching dreams--
and poenemu*
(just to own
I loved, and lived,
and loved the stone).
Aue, taukiri e!
Here's to the beautiful one
who got away!
*Poenamu, also spelled pounamu, is greenstone, the New Zealand jade that is found in huge boulders in the rivers and small pebbles on the riverbanks, from which jewelry and ornaments are made now and from which warclubs were made in the past.
It's probably not in your local library, but this Amazon link has some copies. The ISBN number is: 0-86806-475-0
Describe strands? O, fishing and death. Angry women/angry earth chants, and funny inserts/insights/snippets/snappings. Winesongs of fifteen years maturation. Plait together land and air and sea: interweave the eye and the word and the ear. Show people that I take life seriously, but not so seriously as to ruin my chance of getting out of it alive...I am a strand-dweller in reality, a strand-loper of sorts -- nau mai! Come share a land, a lagoon, a mind, a glass...
A sample:
Saying Nothing/In the End
(Lines to be put on a gravestone)
E, wrap me in the black bark cloth
strew kokowai
and let there be white bones
between my teeth
(fish or birds, god knows
and I'll no longer care)
and a paua-hafted hook
laid handily
to show my trade
--catching dreams--
and poenemu*
(just to own
I loved, and lived,
and loved the stone).
Aue, taukiri e!
Here's to the beautiful one
who got away!
*Poenamu, also spelled pounamu, is greenstone, the New Zealand jade that is found in huge boulders in the rivers and small pebbles on the riverbanks, from which jewelry and ornaments are made now and from which warclubs were made in the past.
It's probably not in your local library, but this Amazon link has some copies. The ISBN number is: 0-86806-475-0