Iona reads three toikupu from In the shape of his hand lay a river – ‘Morass’, ‘Ara Toi’ and ‘Lodestone’. 

         Let my voice give meaning         to this ending
That I may shatter        and shelter   what lies between
 And in fragmented friction                  remain upright

 

from ‘Voice’

In the shape of his hand lay a river, Iona Winter, Elixir & Star Press, 2024

The section titles of Iona Winter’s new poetry collection underline the tidal wave of grief that drives the poems, the slam of loss, the invisible currents, the arteries of the heart: Torrents, Subterranean, Estuaries, Confluence, Tributaries. Iona draws us into the darkest crevices, into the painful afterslam of her beloved son’s suicide. She is navigating and retrieving, remembering and recording. No rules, no model for the parent savaged with grief. Ah. How to move and speak and scream and rage? How to write? This utterly moving sequence of poems, so brutally honest, so open for viewing.

How to write your darling when ‘in the shape of his hand lay a river, the warmth of his heart a universe’. He is there in the space between and above and within the lines, he is there on the beach, in the doctor’s waiting room awaiting diagnosis or prescription. How to replenish and heal the empty husk of self, the swollen heart, the need to love? Iona is singing her son, as she sings and screeches her grief, moving into incantation, moving between dark and light, mother-earth and infinite sky, between the impossible questions and the difficult answers. And with every step, with every ache, she never loses sight of love.

I am reading Iona’s poetic testimony, her aching revelations, her poetry that stitches grief to love, and I recognise this as deeply personal but as more than that. Her personal tributaries signpost imperative questions for us as a nation, as communities, questions that consider how to keep our young people safe, how to nurture and protect our vulnerable youth, how to foster self love and self growth, how to stand up and fight for what is precious. Look around us, look at the stockpiling wounds and losses and dislocations.

Iona has written poetry in the shape of her heart and it sings.

           you have no choice
but to withstand the storm, or break open

like a flooded plain, where green-leaved rākau
       are briefly dazzled by the returning sun

 

from ‘Three years without summer’

Iona Winter (Waitaha/Kāi Tahu) is a poet, essayist, storyteller and editor. She has several published collections of poetry and short fiction; most recently In the shape of his hand lay a river (2024). Her upcoming book A Counter of Moons, creative non-fiction speaking to the aftermath of suicide, is due for publication in 2024. In 2023, Iona founded Elixir & Star Press, as a dedicated space for the expression of grief in Aotearoa New Zealand. The inaugural Elixir & Star Grief Almanac 2023, a liminal gathering, included over 100 multidisciplinary responses to grief. Widely published and internationally anthologised, Iona creates work that spans genre and form, and lives in the Buller region. 

Elixir & Star Press page