Britomart is proud to present new poetry all over the precinct to celebrate the Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki, rendered in posters by Inhouse Design. The posters are presented as text fragments, but you can read each work in full here on our website. This one is E hoa/friends by Robert Sullivan.
E hoa/friends
How do I love you, my friends?
let me count the mountain’s ways,
the heightened plains that bend
up into snowy reaches, playing
on the mind out of sight to send
pillars of light, clouds, rains
on a grateful garden bed
pulling out rocks making lakes
with his tokotoko, with her cloaks sent
from our māra kai into our food basket
filled with sweetness and kōrero each
to each—we're peaches, plums,
strawberries and yams, we’re
only the bumblebee’s hums
aroha stumblefooting the air
in this flowering season.
Robert Sullivan (he/him/ia, Ngāpuhi and Kāi Tahu) has won many awards for his poetry, editing, and writing for children, including the 2022 Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for a distinguished contribution to New Zealand poetry. Tunui Comet (Auckland University Press, 2022) is his eighth collection of poems. His book Star Waka has been reprinted many times. Robert's an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Massey University.
