koiwi koiwi by Hinemoana Baker launched in style.

The Ballroom Café in Newton was heaving as guests packed in to listen to an evening of music and poetry from 3 Wahine Toa - Teresia Teaiwa, Simone Kaho and Hinemoana Baker.

The long awaited second book of Hinemoana – kōiwi kōiwi – bone bone was launched by Teresia Teaiwa who said:

“David Eggleton, in his review of mātuhi/needle described how Hinemoana “reconjugates the obvious, making it surprising all over again.” I am confident he’d say the same of kōiwi, kōiwi. Structured in three parts, “head bone”, “tail bone” and “bone bone,” the poems combine feather light descriptions of material reality with the mournful gravitas of historical and personal memories; they balance incisive social commentary with a wry, quiet humour; they are anchored by Māoritanga while they are buoyed by international, cross-cultural and humanist engagements.

Hinemoana (pic right)will be leaving next month to enter the University of Iowa’s prestigious international writing programme. In the last two years she has already completed two writers’ residencies—last year she was the Queensland poet in residence, and in 2008 she held a residency at the University of the South Pacific. For both of these, Hinemoana was extremely generous in her outreach and did way more cultivating of other people’s writing skills than most would expect of a writer in residence. If Hinemoana could produce kōiwi, kōiwi out of the impetus of the USP residency, and the epic landscape sonic poem Gondwanavista out of the Queensland stint, imagine what she could produce if she didn’t have so many demands on her time and energy!
We are all hoping that this Iowa residency will allow Hinemoana to give a tonne more time to herself and her writing.”

More can be seen on the VUP Facebook page.