Reihana Robinson
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Her Limitless Her

RURAL REVOLT: In Defence of Coromandel's Wild Kingdom

Available from:
Amazon
Carson’s Bookshop
Auckland University Bookshop

Rural Revolt: In Defence of Coromandel's Wild Kingdom tells the story of environmental struggles. Where big money and bureaucratic self-interest tear at the fabric of traditional rural communities and their threatened way of life. This book is the companion to The Killing Nation: New Zealand's State-Sponsored Addiction to Poison 1080 and is divided into four parts. First They Came for the Wild Goats tells of the government's "Wall of Death" pogrom against the feral goats. Don't Fence Us In describes the attempt to enclose farming families and others behind a divisive "predator-proof" steel barrier. Save Our Wild Pigs exposes the stealth attack by local government to take wild pigs off the local menu. Coromandel Voices: Poison Peninsula presents the struggle for humane wild animal conservation policies. The book is set on the northern Coromandel peninsula of Aotearoa/New Zealand. The struggles are ongoing.

Her Limitless Her

HER LIMITLESS HER

Available in all good bookstores in New Zealand

In Her Limitless Her we see the bounty of women, bosom-packed, dreamy, heretical, fecund, dragging their offspring, twinsets askew, peeling, darning, preening. How far they will go, how far they can stretch…"breathing as if it is the only thing she can do."

Spanning time and distance, crossing boundaries of culture and race, Reihana Robinson, in her second volume, plumbs the depths of love, anguish, memory and possibility.

Hoopla published three books launching at once by a late-career, mid-career, and debut New Zealand poet. I was fortunate to be part of a trio that included two outstanding poets: Jo Thorpe, who enticed us all to Muir’s Bookshop in Gisborne for a ‘sold-out’ book launch, and Elizabeth Welsh, whose hometown launch at The Women’s Bookstore was jam-packed with writers and readers.

Series editor: Mary McCallum 
This Thin Now by Jo Thorpe
Over There a Mountain by Elizabeth Welsh

Reviews and Links

Aue Rona Cover

AUĒ RONA

Available from:
Amazon
Steele Roberts

“Auē Rona e,” Rona cries out. In one swift move she is relocated to the moon. “Auē.” Who is there to hear her cries? This was from before the time of aeroplanes and space shuttles. It is a kind of forced migration but no refuge, just a never-ending misplacement and longing to be reunited with her two brats. She is rooted against her will. An endless struggle.  An endless suffering. “Auē Rona e.”

In my notes to this collection I write “the traditional story of Rona and the moon opens as she is collecting water for her children. A cloud covers the moon; she falls, spilling the water, and she curses. As punishment she is torn from earth and taken to the moon, still clutching her calabash and holding a ngaio tree.  Aue? Rona. Oh Rona. Oh grief. Oh sorrow."

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Reviews and Links

AUP New Poets v3 AUP NEW POETS 3

Available from:
Auckland University Press
Unity Books Online

Reihana's poetry collection Waiting for the Palagi was featured in this Auckland University Press publication together with New Zealand poets Janis Freegard and Katherine Liddy.

Puna Wai KoreroPuna Wai Kōrero: An Anthology of Māori Poetry in English
Edited by Reina Whaitiri & Robert Sullivan

In this pioneering anthology, two leading Māori poets and scholars collect together many Māori poetic voices in English and let flow a wellspring of poetry.

From revered established writers as well as exciting new voices, the poems in Puna Wai Kōrero offer a broad picture of Māori poetry in English. The voices are many and diverse: confident, angry, traditional, respectful, experimental, despairing and full of hope, expressing a range of poetic techniques and the full scope of what it is to be Māori.

From Rangi Faith's 'Karakia to a silent island' to Ben Brown claiming back Baxter's 'Maori Jesus', Phil Kawana's 'Scenes from a council tenancy' and Reihana Robinson's rewrites of the Rona and the moon legend, Tuwhare's lines on a snail shell and Jacq Carter's lines on the Ōmaru River, there is much diversity in this kete. There are poems from all walks of life and using different modes of writing, laments for koro and hopes for mokopuna, celebrations of the land and anger at its abuse, retellings of myth and reclamations of history.

From the chanted songs and oratory of a traditional culture, to engagement with the English language in the nineteenth century, and on into the cultural revival of the late twentieth century, Māori have always been deeply engaged with poetic forms, and Puna Wai Kōrero showcases that deep whakapapa and celebrates its current strength.

Her Limitless Her

THE KILLING NATION: New Zealand's State-Sponsored Addiction to Poison 1080

Available from:
Amazon
Carson's Bookshop Thames
Unity Bookshop Wellington
Paper Plus Whitianga

Living as I do for most of the year in a remote part of the Coromandel, Aotearoa New Zealand, I am involved with environmental research, in particular New Zealand's controversial use of aerial poisoning of wild animals. I work in organic farming and sustainable land use as well as a range of land issues at regional and local level.

The Killing Nation: New Zealand's State-Sponsored Addiction to Poison 1080 is the final part of a series exposing the urban/rural divide. At present this volume is available on Amazon and at select bookstores in NZ. The earlier volumes are in production and are available as one book under the collective title Rural Revolt: In Defence of Coromandel's Wild Kingdom.

© 2020 Reihana Robinson