On Monday went to see Tuwhare with Cal. Man, it was good. Hone Tuwhare is one of NZ’s great poets, also notable as the first Maori writing poetry in English. The show consisted of a bunch of his poems set to music and performed by a whole mixture of different Kiwi musos, linked by a narration by Rawiri Paratene (the grandad in Whale Rider) which talked about Tuwhare’s life, his artistic practice, particular notes about the poems being performed, and potted biographies of the performers.
It was pretty wonderful. It’s hard for me to single out a favourite – but I’ll say I enjoyed Strawpeople doing ‘Covetous’, organizer Charlotte Yates doing ‘Mad’, and Don McGlashan doing ‘Rain’. I was particularly looking forward to Kiwi rap pioneer Te Koopu (Dean Hapeta) performing a politically charged piece from anti-Vietnam days ‘Speak To Me, Brother’, in order to see what the famously prickly Hapeta would be like – I hadn’t seen him on stage since he supported Spearhead in 1995. He came out and lost the crowd more thoroughly than I’ve ever seen a performer lose a crowd, because he read the whole damn thing off a bit of paper he was holding. Granted, it was a long piece, but man, you coulda learned that thing. Disappointing and weird.
The final song was an odd vibe, too, Goldenhorse raising the volume and the tempo to try and rock out a largely middle-aged sit-down crowd. It was a good piece but everyone just sat stone-still (except for one of the women from earlier performers Wai, who was dancing like crazy down by the stage, nice work on that one).
Anyway, the poetry did get a big hearing, and it’s nice for that. Almost shamefully, I’m not familiar with Tuwhare’s work. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by him. Poetry isn’t a huge thing in my life, I’m yet to find the poet or poem that really seizes me the way I’ve been seized by work in other media, but I have an abundant respect for the form and it makes me happy to see this kind of event. So I guess I have to go and read me some Hone Tuwhare now…
6 thoughts on “Seen: Tuwhare”
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I thought Grahame Brazier was pretty wicked, and I was always disappointed by the acts which tried to “rock out” with the drums and the guitars and the amps and the volume… oy. The delicacy of the lyrics were lost in those acts.
I’ve actually met him and had a chat about his poetry some years ago. I concluded he was a fraud. :/
Mash: now that, I’m interested in. There was definitely an aura of hagiography to the whole exercise that I was happy to play along with – it has its place IMO – but it’d be nice to inoculate myself with a shot of your opinion…
A fraud? You mean someone else writes his poetry for him?
No, just that it was not the comprehensively artful construction that it’s portrayed to be.
‘No ordinary sun’ is my personal fave. Many of my students have had it thurst upon them and actually most teens seem to like Tuwhare’s work.
I’d also recommend Apirana Taylor as a good NZ Maori poet to read. Te Ata Kura( The Red Tipped Dawn) is great anathology to start on – he is a fantastic performer if you get a chance to go to one of his readings, I’d highly recommend it.