Tusiata Avia was a star in her 5pm slot at the Going West Festival. The audience burst into spontaneous applause after every poem. She read some old favourites from Wild Dogs Under My Skirt. I hadn’t heard her read from Bloodclot before but it gave mesmerising new layers to the poetry  — to hear the way her voice transformed the words with added poignancy and edge. Tusiata is a poet but she is also a storyteller, and you travel as you hear each poem.Her new poems have such clarity of voice, whatever the subject matter. She took you to the day of the quake and made you a feel sliver of that tension through her evocative rendition of the day. It was personal. It was poetic. It was moving. I loved her new poem where she is in search of a manifesto for writing poems. She resists it, subverts it and the presents it. ‘I can write about poetry but I can only use ordinary words like good and fruitbats.’ [might not quite have that right, sorry Tusiata!]. ‘For me it will always be about stories.’ ‘Most of the time I just get a glimmer, a picture on the fruit bowl of my skill.’ Her last poem, a list poem, began with a Sonya Renee’s line “My body is …” It caught you up, spun you round, and deposited you back somewhere on earth. She told her story (stories), she made the words sing and shine, she gave you fleeting peeks of Tusiata; she moved, she entertained, she delighted. It was the perfect way to end a long and satisfying day.

PS I am not sure why Auckland writers don’t take that trip out west to support our taonga, our special gusts. I was disappointed.