RUMBLE STRIP

The verb to be
is not, in Māori.
How, then,  would we
translate that soliloquy?

We had the choice.
We said not.
Is this why they (me)
tried so hard to 

kill us (we)?
We need be not.
We live, which is
a dark disguise

a river which 
itself swims.
Beauty which flies
into nets and tropes.

This is a warning
and we all hear it:
our wheels rumble
and hum high strung

before we veer 
(volcanic) left
or right towards
the grimacing witness.

*

Look at me posing like this!
Like that! A mother in a
tizz with salt sea hair
struggles not to stray.

Later a bodied wine 
will warm her glass
and mine, the chamber
of my voice, my rising

chest. Like mine
her verbs and nouns
resist. Her troubles,
like the unforgiving

childgod, sometimes 
break the plates. 
Volcano in a fortification.
Mirror in a mirror.

At any time at least one of us 
is looking straight ahead, no 
fraying, no strays. Look at me
kneeling like this!

Look at me holding all fine
things towards you! The deep 
blood beat of my music.
Be, it sings. Be. Be.

Hinemoana Baker

Takatāpui poet and performer Hinemoana Baker traces her ancestry from Ngāti Raukawa-ki-te-Tonga, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa and Kāi Tahu, and from England and Germany. Her four poetry collections, several original music albums and other sonic and written work have seen her on stages and pages nationally and in many other countries around world in the last 25 years. Her most recent poetry collection, ‘Funkhaus’ (THWUP 2021) was shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and has been translated into German and Polish. Having lived in Berlin for 9 years, Hinemoana has now returned home, and recently finished a term as Randell Cottage Trust’s 2024 writer in residence, living and writing at the historic homestead at the base of Te Ahumairangi (Thorndon) in Te-Whanga-nui-a-Tara. 

Currently Hinemoana is working towards a Creative Writing doctorate at IIML (Te Herenga Waka Victoria University), for which she is writing a new collection called ‘Exhaust World’. As a long-time teacher and mentor for other writers, Hinemoana is also involved in facilitating poetry sessions for takatāpui and LGBTQI+ Māori writers, through Mana Tipua Trust in Ōtautahi. These sessions, called ‘Ruri Rongoā’, are also part of Hinemoana’s doctoral research, facilitating poetry wānanga as a form of rongoā, repair, solidarity and community. In this work she draws on the model of Te Whare Takatāpui, a framework created by Dr. Elizabeth Kerekere.