Black Sugarcane, Nafanua Purcell Kersel
Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2025

“Let me say this. There is no shortage of poetry books published in Aotearoa this year to love, to be enthralled and astonished by. We need this. We need these reading pathways. Sometimes I love a poetry book so much I transcend the everyday scene of reading (yes those bush tūī singing and the kererū fast-swooping) to a zone where I am beyond words. It is when reading is both nourishment and restoration, miracle and epiphany . . . and that is what I get with this book.”

Paula Green, Poetry Shelf, 2025

To celebrate placement on The Ockham NZ Book Awards poetry shortlist, I invited the four poets to choose some favourite things. Second up Nafanua Purcell Kersel.

Nafanua Purcell Kersel chooses favourites

Four photos
(a favourite object, place, book cover, album)

A favourite thing is a seat with a view

A favourite place is the ‘blue corner’, our family coffee spot on my Mum and Dad’s front porch in Sāmoa.

Current favourite poetry book is Hungus by Amber Esau, one of the smartest, slickest poets in Aotearoa

Fave album: All the xennial girlies know

Three sets of three

Three favourite words in your poetry toolkit

A/a – small, sharp/round and very useful.
Place – I’ve been learning to see each poem as a place which helps me nest in and focus.
Mana – I try to ask myself, where does the mana sit?

Three things that matter to you when you read and write poems (just a sentence for each)

Rhythm: how does it sound and flow, what’s the pace and where can these be interrupted?
Structure and shape: concentric patterns of structure and shape in a line, stanza, poem and collection.
Simplicity: As much as possible (unless it’s impossible) I try to use plain language, easy or interesting shapes, blank spaces. 

Three poets who have inspired you

Tusiata Avia
Amber Esau
M. NourbeSe Philip

One question:  Why or how does your poetry book matter to you?

It mattered to me to have something to pass on to my children, something they could hold with our family names and stories in it. 

One poem 

Family video call
15 March 2019

On screen our faces are
like clay, about to crack.

We listen for Dad
to splinter the distance between us—

tatou tatalo,
let us pray for those poor families
in Christchurch,
with their loved ones taken.

We must stay aware,
keep safe
and never forget.

We had felt almost safe before this,
thought it was okay to be loud with our brown selves

thought we were free,
but we had only forgotten

that blackbirding and dawn raids
were hatchets roughly buried

and for decades we had let
tiny red flags sneak past us,

let our guards
slip off to sleep.

Now we are reminded
that we are minor.

A migrant shadow follows me to bed,
slips in heavy beside me

steals my comfort
warmth
dreams
prayers

Nafanua Purcell Kersel

‘

Nafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa‘itea, Faleālupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu) is a writer, poet and performer who was born in Sāmoa and raised in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. Her poetry has been widely published. She has an MA from the IIML at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington and won the 2022 Biggs Family Prize in Poetry for Black Sugarcane, her first book. She lives in Te Matau-a-Māui Hawke’s Bay.

Te Herenga Waka University Press page

Listen to Nafanua read here

Poetry Shelf review