Tūnui | Comet

Tūnui | Comet is the first collection in more than a decade by one of our most important living Māori poets. Rolling easily between kōrero Māori and the canonical traditions of English-language poetry, through karakia and pōwhiri, treaty training and decolonisation wiki entries, Robert Sullivan takes readers on a marvellous poetic hīkoi.

Guided by Māui and Tāwhirimātea, Moana Jackson and Freddie Mercury, we walk from K’Rd council flats to Kaka Point, finding ourselves and our ancestors along the way.

We stand tall before we play the clock out
past the reef toward Matariki. Clouds raise
their fists as seagulls and sparrows swoon
into the rainbow. It has been a long homecoming
and he has made the pieces one.