Tidelines, Kiri Piahana-Wong
Anahera Press, 2024

This is a deceptively slim volume of fourteen poems, most of which have been published elsewhere over several years.

Deceptive, because there are not many poems, and none are very long. Deceptive also because Kiri Piahana-Wong does not pen complicated toikupu, rife with looooong, arcane kupu, nor ripe with over-clever technical tweaks and twists. Rather she is a poet who keeps things simple. Who bares their soul across few words.

So after a rather easy glide through the entire volume in one sitting, the impression may be of ‘just another’ poetry collection.

Nothing could be further from the reality: Tidelines is a profound statement of angst, anxiety (Lorazepam rears up during the poem ironically titled Happiness) and agony, replete with themes pertaining to mamae (pain) and whakamomori (suicide), garnished contrapuntally however with joy and wonder and awe for – while the poet frankly relates personal griefs and dubieties –  they also extol visceral illuminations, often presaged by ngā manu (birds), and presented as a pageant nā te Ao Tūturu (Nature). There is nothing slim whatsoever about these poems, about this collection. Despite some despair, there is bravery in the brevity, there is reconciliation, resilience. Tidelines washes away tragedy and becomes a delight, an oxymoron, a  courageous catharsis in print.  

Piahana-Wong inculcates and parallels Hinerangi, whose own loss of her bethrothed at sea led to her waiting stoically, indeed stochastically, for his reurn to her. Tragically, this never transpired and Hinerangi remained there and remains there still, cast as a set or rocks now known as Te Āhua o Hinerangi.  

Yet, this poet is not a mass of immovable headland. Far from it. Because, in compiling these poems relating some dark days of distress, several scintillas of sorrow, the poet becomes saved, rescues themself. For while during ‘On the day I died‘ –

I felt the unremitting pull
of Hinerangi calling
me, urging me to join her,
jump from the cliff, drown
myself in her distress

Piahana-Wong instead, is delivered by her tūpuna and –

(…) a mighty
gust of wind blew me back
from the edge of the cliff
and away

Indeed, by volume’s end, we read in the final poem titled – again somewhat ironically –  ‘In the beginning’ –

Sometimes, on the
right day, with the
wind in the west and
the sea gleaming,
I even catch myself
on the edge of song.

The dedication in the early pages of Tidelines is ‘For the lost. May you be found.’ To which I would now add, ‘This poetry collection will certainly help!’

Mō ngā ngaro. Kia kitea koe. Ka tino āwhina tēnei pukapuka toikupu!

Vaughan Rapatahana

Kiri Piahana-Wong is a poet, editor and publisher at Anahera Press. She is of Ngāti Ranginui, Chinese and Pākehā ancestry. Her writing has appeared in over forty journals and anthologies, including Essential NZ Poems, Landfall, Tātai Whetū: Seven Māori Women Poets in Translation, Ora Nui, Vā: Stories by Women of the Moana and more. Her previous publications are Night Swimming (Anahera Press, 2013) and (as co-editor with Vaughan Rapatahana) Te Awa o Kupu (Penguin Random House, 2023). A second poetry collection, Give Me An Ordinary Day, is forthcoming. Kiri lives in Whanganui with her family.

Anahera Press Tidelines page

Vaughan Rapatahana (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Te Whiti) is an award-winning poet, novelist, writer and anthologist widely published across several genres in both his main languages, te reo Māori and English. He is a critic of the agencies of English language proliferation and the consequent decimation of Indigenous tongues. His most recent poetry collection, written in te reo Māori (with English language ‘translations’), is titled te pāhikahikatanga/incommensurability. It was published by Flying Islands Books in Australia in 2023. W=ith Kiri Piahan-Wong he co-edited anthology of Māori poetry, Te Awa o Kupu (Penguin,20230) Vaughan lives in Mangakino.