a – wake – ( e ) nd, Audrey Brown-Pereira, Sau’foi Press, 2023

Audrey Brown-Pereira’s third poetry collection, a – wake – (e) nd, is a moving evocation of being, remembering and retrieving, of acknowledging and connecting. You move between fire and fever, ocean and silence, wind and light. There is breath and there is breathe and there is breathing.

Audrey is writing the girl, the woman, she is writing a constellation of selves, she is writing she and I and me and you and we. She is rendering the voice of the woman audible, the woman visible. She is recognising self within self, writing to remember, writing to ‘forget me (k)not’ as one poem is entitled. It is for daughters. It is for her. It is speaking in poetic form to and with and by and for whanua and family, for poetry lovers.

It is political and it personal. It is raising the red flag on climate change and the effect our choices have had and are having on the Pacific Ocean and its inhabitants.

Audrey resists a seamless word flow for both eye and ear. Open the collection and you will fall upon the spaces along the lines, the gaps, the clearings, the intake of breath. These might be registered as silent beats or as rich gatherings. The space becomes bridge between this word and that word, this feeling and that feeling, this recollection and that idea. It is musical – think syncopation, harmony, melody. It is daydream and it is sidetrack. I am (a)float on these islands of words.

And there we go – carried to the i (s) land. The fractured word re-forms to sing of self and belonging and again, yes, of being. The reverberations are there too in the title poem, ‘a- wake – (e) nd’. Both revitalised and reclaimed words are windows, doorways, exquisite pathways into the collection – this writing and this reading is an awakening. A reforming of self. There is pain and there is a slow vital spacing out of self. Think heart and think body. Think loved and loving and loved ones. The writing is awake to or with or for or by: she and I and me and you.

Find a copy of the book – nestle into the clearings – tune in your ear and your eye. Listen to Audrey read from the collection here. Follow the wind and the light, the ocean and the land, as you are embraced by the rhythm and melody and remembering. This is a glorious book of her, of making woman girl she present. It is voyage and epiphany and talisman. It is to hold close and breathe in. I love it. So very much.

Audrey Teuki Tetupuariki Tuioti Brown-Pereira (1975) is an innovative poet who plays with text on the page and words in the air/ear. Poetry collections include Threads of Tivaevae: Kaleidoskope of Kolours (2002) with Veronica Vaevae, published by Steele Roberts and Passages in Between I(s)lands (2014) with Ala Press. Born in the Cook Islands and raised in New Zealand, Audrey lives in Samoa with her family. She is a graduate of Auckland University and the National University of Samoa.

Saufo’i Press page