Poem Notes



These three poems are about identity. 



Sea Saw 

Is about how we can love someone or something like the sea, and then they do something abhorrent, shocking and unexpected. They are not who we thought they were. Their identity as we perceived it shifts and our relationship teeters. Who changed? Has the sea changed? No. Our knowledge of it has. The size of the tsunami in Japan and the devastation was caused by this same sea that laps our shores and how are we now to behave towards it? 



Hebe 

Some things, the maunga (mountain) and the possibility of Māori men fishing off the same rocks, perhaps changes little over time, preserving clues to history. It is the observer who changes and what they see is dependent on their own identity, their own whakapapa and their links with land, pukeko, plant. 



Whakapapa 

Itself is constantly shifting, as in the poem, three generations move through time exchanging identities. Mother, daughter, grand-daughter together – precious whakapapa.