2022 was a big year for the Tuwhare Trust. We completed the restoration of the crib and launched the inaugural Tuwhare Creative Residency. Our inaugural Tuwhare residency was new, and we took a developmental approach and leapt in boots and all with a big bold decision. To honour the legacy of Hone Tuwhare, the first residency was held by a collective of Maori creatives; artist and activist Tame Iti (Ngai Tuhoe, Te Arawa, Waikato); artist and writer Tracey Tawhiao (Ngai te Rangi, Whakatohea, Ngati Tuwharetoa) and poet and activist Ati Teepa (Tuhoe, Kai Tahu). Tame, Tracey and Ati have spent time at the crib in Kaka Point over the last 2 years and each, in their own way, have helped us to shape the newly developed Tuwhare Residency Programme that we will launch in 2025. We are so proud to have Tame, Tracey and Ati as our inaugural Tuwhare Fellows who will forever hold this special pou as part of the whakapapa of the Tuwhare Residency Programme. There’s more to come soon and we are excited to share more about the future of the Tuwhare Residency Programme. Stay tuned. Mauri Ora.
Hone Tuwhare’s first poetry book, No Ordinary Sun turned 60 last year. It was the first single-author poetry collection by a Maori author. This significant milestone for Aotearoa’s literary landscape passed largely unnoticed.
Thank you to Jordyn at Maori Literature Blog for this thoughtful post. Possibly the only person to fly a flag for the 60th anniversary of Hone’s debut 1964 collection of iconic poems.
Above image: Hone Tuwhare reading No Ordinary Sun — Reference: New Zealand Herald [250208NZHTUWHARE]
Below: Tuwhare, H. No Ordinary Sun. Auckland: Blackwood and Janet Paul, 1964. First edition.
There were the 9 print runs over 18 years of No Ordinary Sun that produced an array of stunning book covers by some of Aotearoa’s most notable artists, many of whom were whanau, friends and colleagues of Hone’s. This greyish-off-white and black 1964 first edition cover was designed by Warwick Bradshaw a friend of Hone’s from Whakatane and featured a print that represented the effect of an atomic bomb blast, viewed from out of space. (Janet Hunt, 1998)
Pouhere Taonga — Heritage New Zealand has a story about the Tuwhare Crib and Residency in their summer 2024 edition of the Heritage New Zealand magazine. Literary Lifelines is about the special residencies held in the homes of NZ writers. The article also features the Robert Lord Residency in Dunedin, the Shadbolt House in West Auckland and the Randell Cottage in Wellington.
” Residencies provide writers with peace, quiet and uninterrupted time to work but, those held in authors’ historic homes offer something more — connections to the creative wairua housed within their walls”
You can read the digital edition of Heritage New Zealand here.
The Tuwhare Trust is excited to announce that we are the recipients of Matatuhi Foundation funding to support the literary legacy of Hone Tuwhare. This funding will allow the Trust to extend our reach across the literary landscape both locally and nationally to showcase and celebrate the enduring legacy of Hone Tuwhare. Our sincere thanks to the Matatuhi Foundation for their generous support. We will provide more updates on our Hone Tuwhare Legacy Project in the coming weeks and months. Link here for more information about the Matatuhi Foundation.
The Tuwhare Trust has had the privilege of having Vice-Regal Patronage since the Trust was first established in 2010. We are one of a small number of organisations that have this honour and we hold this with much respect and humility. We are particularly proud of having the current Governor General, Dame Cindy Kiro (Ngapuhi, Ngati Hine, Ngati Kahu) as our current Patron. Dame Cindy Kiro began her five-year term as Governor General of New Zealand on 21 October 2021, auspiciously on Hone Tuwhare’s 99th birthday!
You can read more about Dame Cindy Kiro and our previous Patrons here.
Here’s a Tuwhare poem for a Dame.
Rain-maker’s song for Whina
I’ll not forget your joints creaking as you climbed into the bus at Victoria Park to bless the journey. When you broke down in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer, I thought that what you left unsaid hung more tangibly uncertain above us all than some intangible certainty that we would all get a comfortable berth in the hereafter.
Saint Christopher in the rain at night, just before Mangamuka Gorge. People wearing Saint Christopher badges getting off the bus and helping to put an overturned vehicle right side up. No one hurt. I finger the cheap badge you gave me of the saint. Will it be, alright ?
A couple of days later in bright sunshine, we hit the road leaving Te Hapua behind. And all the way south – to the ‘head of the fish,’ I picked up some hard truths embedded in your hilarious speeches on the maraes:
No more lollies !We been sucking the pakeha lolly for one hundred and fifty years. Look at what’s happened. Look at what we got left. Only two million acres. Yes, that’s right. Two million acres out of sixty six million acres.
Think of that. Good gracious, if we let them take what is left we will all become taurekareka. Do we want that ?
So you listen, now. This is a Sacred March. We are marching because we want to hold on to what is left. You must understand this. And you must think of your Tupunas. They are marching beside you. Move over, and make room. We are not going to Wellington for nothing. And don’t be mistaken: Kare tenei hikoi oku, he hikoi noa – aha ranei – ki te miri-miri i nga paoro o Te Roringi.
E, kui ! What a way to bring the ‘House’ down. You could not have lobbed a sweeter grenade. I’m all eared-in to you baby .… Kia ora tonu koe.
