Dec 27 2025
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The Slow Burning Legacy of Hone Tuwhare

By News, Trustees

It’s a wrap for 2025 & it’s been anoth­er busy year for the Tuwhare Trust. Like so many cre­ative Trusts in Aotearoa, we are vol­un­teers, we have to hus­tle for fund­ing, our Trustees live in Te Tai Tok­er­au, Tama­ki, Hau­ra­ki, Te Tai Rawhiti and Te Wai Pouna­mu & we are deeply com­mit­ted to the Tuwhare kau­pa­pa of inspir­ing peo­ple through the cel­e­bra­tion of the Tuwhare lega­cy. To close out the year, here are a few words about the Tuwhare lega­cy spo­ken at Otak­ou Marae, Otepoti on Octo­ber 17 as part of the Ahi Kaa open­ing event of the 2025 Dunedin Writ­ers & Read­ers Festival.

Hone Tuwhare’s poet­ry invoked nuclear apoc­a­lypse and tani­wha, lis­tened to the sea, rivers and rain, tast­ed kina, mus­sels and women and tuned in to the clang of work­ing men’s lives and whaka­pa­pa etched in the land. His lega­cy con­tin­ues to rum­ble through the life of poet­ry in Aotearoa — slow, deep and unstoppable.

Tuwhare’s lega­cy embod­ies. His poet­ry did some­thing sub­tle and seis­mic: it rede­fined what count­ed as “New Zealand lit­er­a­ture.” He brought te ao Maori — its humour, its cadences, its spir­i­tu­al­i­ty — into the main­stream with­out trans­la­tion or apol­o­gy, he sim­ply embod­ied it. To you I will sing of the water he wrote, and in that sim­ple act of address he remind­ed us that the land and its peo­ple are not sub­jects of poet­ry; they are poetry.

Tuwhare’s lega­cy cre­ates space. His influ­ence can be seen in all the poets who have fol­lowed, all of you in the whare tonight. Each of you car­ries some ember of Tuwhare’s insis­tence that lan­guage be lived in, not mere­ly used. His easy tog­gling between Eng­lish and te reo Maori, between the lyri­cal and the col­lo­qui­al, cracked open space for writ­ers to bring their whole selves to the page.

Tuwhare’s lega­cy is rela­tion­al. He per­formed in pubs and marae, laughed loud, signed books with a wink. He was our poet of the peo­ple not because he wrote for them, but with them, his work echo­ing the oral tra­di­tions that pre­dat­ed and will out­last the print­ed word. Even his pol­i­tics, anti-nuclear, anti-colo­­nial & com­mu­ni­ty inspired, came from that same whaka­pa­pa of care, where resis­tance and aro­ha are inter­twined. Where the heart can protest, and the protest can sing and poems can hum with para­dox­i­cal joy: fierce, fun­ny and deeply root­ed in relationship.

The kau­pa­pa of the Tuwhare Trust is to con­tin­ue to stoke the fire of Hone’s lega­cy by inspir­ing new gen­er­a­tions of poets. The forge is still hot. The ham­mer still rings. And in the echo, you can hear Hone smiling.

Aro­hanui

Jeanette Wikaira, Chair = Tuwhare Trust.

Nov 01 2025
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Nga Korero Hononu o te Awa — New poetry collection

By News

Nga Korero Hohonu o te Awa — The Hone Tuwhare Poet­ry Series 2023, curat­ed by Jeanette Wikaira and Kit­ty Brown was launched in Octo­ber as part of the 2025 Dunedin Writ­ers and Read­ers Fes­ti­val. This col­lec­tion is vol­ume one of what will be a series of Tuwhare pub­li­ca­tions acknowl­edg­ing the lega­cy of Hone Tuwhare.   We are so proud of this col­lec­tion and thank­ful to the poets who agreed to par­tic­i­pate in both the 2023 Poet­ry Series and Nga Korero Hon­onu o te Awa. Thank you to local Dunedin small press, Manu Scripts for their beau­ti­ful work on pub­lish­ing this book and to Tracey Tawhiao for the lush art­work fea­tured on the cov­er and with­in the book.

The col­lec­tion fea­tures poet­ry by: Ati Teepa, Chris Tse, Cil­la McQueen, David Eggle­ton, Jes­si­ca Hin­eran­gi Thom­p­­son-Carr, liz bres­lin, Louise Wal­lace, Michaela Vyas, Sophia Wil­son and Tracey Tawhiao.

The book’s words of acknowl­edge­ment by Rob Tuwhare are repro­duced here:

Jeanette asked me to write about how I feel about this “wee” book her and Kit­ty Brown have put togeth­er. I think she got her Scot­tish wrong.

It’s helped me read again want­i­ng more.
cry
laugh
won­der
envy
write
learn
smile
think
cel­e­brate
hon­our
and appre­ci­ate words
and the book
it’s wild.
I loved being at the fes­ti­val to hear this work presented.
?tepoti Read­ers and Writ­ers rock.
And it has become a reg­u­lar spot for oth­ers to read poet­ry along­side the kau­pa­pa of our Dad.
Awe­some cov­er Tracey Tawhiao.
Aro­hanui for the magic.

Rob Tuwhare.

The book’s intro­duc­tion is repro­duced here:

Hone Tuwhare’s poet­ry is like a korero on the marae: part chal­lenge, part embrace, always alive, with the promise of a good feed after­wards. It’s poet­ry that fills you up. The 2023 Hone Tuwhare Poet­ry Series was poet­ry that filled you up. Hone would’ve loved it.

Nga korero hohonu o te awa — deep riv­er talk seemed an apt Hone-inspired name for this first-time poet­ry series deliv­ered at the Dunedin Writ­ers & Read­ers Fes­ti­val in Octo­ber 2023. Otak­ou Marae opened the fes­ti­val with the tipuna, Te Awa Otak­ou watch­ing on and deep riv­er talk came alive. At the marae ancient poet­ry flowed, koauau & karanga,whaikorero & waia­ta. Writ­ers spoke. Read­ers lis­tened. Hone smiled.

The world was shift­ing and the poets felt it. Israel had just invad­ed Gaza, Aus­tralia had vot­ed NO to Indige­nous voice and wasps took over a bee­hive in Poneke. The poets tapped a vein and the poet­ry series took on this moment of resis­tance. Hone  beamed with pride.

The poet lau­re­ates came. Cil­la McQueen (Hone’s favourite), David Eggle­ton and Chris Tse gave us their best toko­toko raised poet­ry. The inau­gur­al Tuwhare fel­lows came. Tracey Tawhiao and Ati Teepa brought poet­ry koha from their res­i­den­cies at Hone’s crib at Kaka Point. The pun­ters came. We made nation­al head­lines by rub­bing up against elec­tion night rules with a row­dy night of polit­i­cal poet­ry at Woof! Hone shout­ed shots of whiskey. The local poets came. liz bres­lin led the poet­ry whanau in a pass the par­cel poet­ry cel­e­bra­tion for Chris Tse’s birth­day and they gave us the word med­i­cine we all need­ed. Hone got the gui­tar out. Hone’s whanau came. Man­a­ia Tuwhare-Hoani showed us the pow­er of poet­ry per­formed, poet­ry that cours­es through her whaka­pa­pa. Hone cried tears of joy, and said…

On life’s eter­nal river

we float on … and

on, for­ev­er — like

a stream of light

enhanc­ing our under-

stand­ing of human love,

and life! Kia ora!

 

Jeanette Wikaira & Kit­ty Brown — Hone Tuwhare Poet­ry Series Curators.

Please get in touch to pur­chase copies of this beau­ti­ful book.

Oct 29 2025
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2025 Tuwhare Poetry Series: Bingo! Everyone Smiles

By News

The final event of the Tuwhare Poet­ry Series line up was, BINGO! Every­one Smiles, a much-need­ed chill Sun­day poet­ry ses­sion on the final day of the Dunedin Writ­ers and Read­ers Fes­ti­val pro­gramme. A thought­ful bin­go poet­ry event where the audi­ence were invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate by cre­at­ing their own bin­go poet­ry boards. Tak­ing a cue from Hone Tuwhare’s know­ing humour, our poets served up verse that was play­ful and thought­ful, full of sharp wit, unex­pect­ed joy, elec­tric lan­guage and when it hit…bin­go! Expert­ly host­ed by Otepoti-based the­atre pro­duc­er, H‑J Kilkelly.

As always, our for­ev­er thanks to the won­der­ful poets — Liz Bres­lin, Nafan­ua Pur­cell Kersel, Isla Huia, Sih­le Ntuli, Jess Hin­eran­gi and Jas­mine Taylor.

Spe­cial thanks to H‑J and Liz, friends of the Tuwhare Trust and weavers of magic.

Extra spe­cial thanks to Isla Huia the 2025 Te Pane Kaka o Tuwhare — Tuwhare Poet­ry Res­i­den­cy recip­i­ent, we are so proud to wel­come Isla into the Tuwhare Res­i­den­cy whanau. XX

The Tuwhare Trust would like to thank our supporters, partners and friends.

Friend

Do you remember
that wild stretch of land
with the lone tree guard­ing the point
from the sharp-tongued sea?

The fort we built out of branches
wrenched from the tree
is dead wood now.
The air that was thick with the whirr of 
toe­toe spear suc­cumbs at last to the grey gul­l’s wheel.

Oys­ter-stud­ded roots 
of the man­grove yield no fin­er feast
of sil­ver-bel­lied eels, and sea-snails
cooked in a rusty can.

Allow me to mend the bro­ken ends
of shared days: 
but I want­ed to say
that the tree we climbed
that gave food and drink 
to youth­ful dreams, is no more.
Pursed to the lips her fine-edged
leaves made whis­tle — now stamp
no silken trac­ery on the cracked
clay floor.

Friend,
in this drear
dream­less time I clasp
your hand if only to reassure
that all our jew­elled fan­tasies were
real and wore splen­did rags.

Per­haps the tree 
will strike fresh roots again:
give sooth­ing shade to a hurt and 
trou­bled world.