Streetside: Britomart | Poet and curator Matariki Bennett's Rocketman line-up

MATARIKI BENNETT I'm really, really excited too.

MATARIKI BENNETT Dad and I have been working together for three years now as co-curators Māori for the festival, but this is the first time I've been a part of Streetside. Dad and I have, like, a different approach from what typically is seen at writers’ festivals. Most artists are multifaceted, you know; we don't just write, and a lot of our work is in the film world. So we've made a real effort to branch out sessions to include a wide range of artists and voices that might not necessarily be seen on the literary stage or in those kind of rooms.

We've had dancers, we've had actors we've had musicians, because at the end of the day, we're all creators, we're all writers, and writing is part of a lot of those processes. So what we do is we find all the people that we really want to shine a light on, who also happen to be Māori, and find a really cool way of getting them to interact and share their work in this literary space.

MATARIKI BENNETT For the line-up for Streetside, almost every poet came through the Word: The Front Line competition or has at some point worked within the Word: The Front Line space and so they’re all people I've grown up with in the poetry community and just some of my favourite poets. Ken Arkind, who's MCing and hopefully also will be dropping a couple of poems too, has been my mentor since I was like 13, 14, when I first started writing poetry. I wanted to bring him into the space with a whole bunch of people that he's also mentored. Stevie Davis-Tana as well. She was one of the mentors at The Front Line, so it's kind of bringing all these people together that have been a huge part of my poetry journey, but also just incredible poets.

MATARIKI BENNETT Well, Manaia Tuwhare-Hoani and Arihia Hall are both members of Ngā Hine Pūkōrero, which is a slam poetry collective. I'm also a member of the group and we've been writing together since I was 14. We’re all super-used to performing in a group context, and as we've gotten older and branched out, performing alone has been a really exciting new thing for all of us, and so I really wanted to showcase them.

I've got Jai Selkirk and Jayden Osbourne, who were both again poets at The Front Line that I became really good friends with. They won the Word: The Front Line in 2017 as part of Dilworth School. Jai's poem that went viral in 2017 or 2018, True Story, is incredible. It’s one of those poems that still to this day, I go back to and I know a lot of people go back to for inspiration. It’s one of those poems that gets you all riled up.

And Jayden Osborne, for a couple of years, he was running poetry nights out of Cafe 39 in Ponsonby, which was inspiration for this session. I was going to these evenings at Café 39, which were really chill, and Jaden would MC the evenings. A lot of poets that have kind of grown up around it would come and perform on the open mic and it was just cosy, such a good energy. And I kind of want to replicate that in the Rocketman event. 

We also have Matilda Clack who again is an old friend of mine. We competed together in Word: the Front Line. Beautiful poet. She's a teacher now and it was a bit of a push to get her.  She hasn't been slamming. I know that it's like that for a lot of poets. Once they graduate from Word: The Front Line, which is a group competition, performing alone is a completely different ball game, and I haven't seen her perform as much as these other poets. So I’m so excited to see her perform because she is just such a beautiful storyteller.

Lex Shoemark was in the Word: The Front Line tradition a couple years after I was. I’ve seen Lex perform so many times and just every single time the room is silent. And Talia Stanley, who won the National Poetry Slam last year, they're incredible. I can't even describe. Their performance is just like nothing else.

Ngaio Simmons actually wasn't a part of the Word: The Front Line slam. However, when I first met them was when Ngā Hine Pūkōrero were going over to break new voices in Las Vegas and Ngaio had just recently moved to Aotearoa. They’re from Hawaii and they mentored us throughout that process, getting us ready to go over. Incredible poet as well. And Jack Glacier, who will be DJing, also happened to go through Word: The Front Line and is now a DJ.

MATARIKI BENNETT I think it was last year I popped into a Streetside event, I don’t remember the name of it but I remember it being in a room where there was a window you could see in through. And I stood outside and listened because a couple of my friends were performing. I've seen so many of these poets perform so many times, but no two performances are the same. So I encourage anyone who has seen these poets before to see them again, because we need to celebrate our poets.

MATARIKI BENNETT Yes. I've been a part of maybe one or two sessions in the past. At the Auckland Writers Festival, Dad and I tend to stay off the stage because it, you know, isn't about us. We're platforming. But this year my debut collection of poetry e kō, nō hea koe? is coming out, so I thought I need to maybe share some stuff from there because it's all new.

MATARIKI BENNETT Yeah, it's girl, where are you from? Everything seems to overlap in my world. It came from a line that my friend Manaia Tuwhare-Hoani, who is going to be performing, a line that she shared one evening when we were talking about poetry, and it was a cornerstone, because identity is one of those things that as a young person is kind of at the forefront of your brain. So, the collection of poetry stems from that idea. girl, where are you from? It explores all the different ways in which we identify ourselves, or I identify myself and figure out who I am. It's published by Dead Bird Books. And it comes out on the 7th of May. I'm so excited. Next week, just before Streetside, which was intentional. I wanted to make sure it was out before the Streetside event.