Sarah Jane Barnett
A Canoe in Midstream: Poems New & Old, by Apirana Taylor (Canterbury University Press, 2009), 168 pp., $25.00
A Canoe in Midstream: Poems New & Old, by Apirana Taylor (Canterbury University Press, 2009), 168 pp., $25.00
At a hefty one hundred and sixty eight pages, Apirana Taylor’s fifth volume of poetry brings together new work with previously published poems. Taylor is a poet and short story writer who also writes for children and theatre. With a background in drama, much of his work has appeared in multimedia recordings. Taylor first’s collection Eyes of the Ruru was published in 1972, and it launched his voice onto the New Zealand poetry landscape. Critics have called his poetry everything from ‘raging’ to ‘meditative’. Of Maori and Pakeha descent, with affiliation to Ngati Porou, Te Whanau-a-Apanui and Ngati Ruanui, his style is often contrasted with the fluid lyricism of Hone Tuwhare.
Taylor’s poetic style is that of simplicity. The majority of poems in A Canoe in Midstream are short and have minimal punctuation. Only a handful of poems span more than a page. The collection encompasses themes of humanity’s relationship with nature, love, life, death and magic. In Taylor’s poems, land and people are the same: the ‘mountain [has] bones’, and people are made of tree buds. One reading of the collection is that of a catalogue or celebration of New Zealand’s natural wonders: stones, flesh, morepork, totara, rimu and kahikatea; storms and islands.
Taylor’s poems also talk about the impact of colonisation and urbanisation on Maori. At times the poems come across as angry, and with a bitter aftertaste (which is not unjustified). In his most well-known poem, ‘Sad Joke on a Marae’, the speaker, ‘Tu the freezing worker’, calls ‘Ngati D.B.’ his tribe. Taylor gives Tu this depressing mihi, and in this poem, and the other poems that hint at drunkenness and violence in Maori communities, it is difficult to tell if Taylor is sympathising with his characters or scolding them.
Other poems have tones of retribution, such as the poem, ‘The Womb’, where the voice of the land says: ‘you settlers and farmers / return to me / and I suck on your bodies / as if they are lollipops.’ Many poems are written in Maori, which may be one of the ways Taylor honours and acknowledges his ancestry. In ‘Maori Girl’, ‘The ghosts of your ancestors tap on your / shoulders’, and I wonder if Taylor’s poems are meant to inspire Maori to discover their roots. Many retell Maori history, such as the poems ‘Kapiti’ about Te Rauparaha, and ‘Parihaka’. For Taylor all is not lost: faith wells in these poems. The poem ‘Whakapapa’ is an encouraging retelling of the Maori creation myth, and ‘God’ appears often as a comfort. In some poems, such as ‘Charteris Bay’, a gentler and lyrical style emerges:
the inlet turned
the languid colour of pea green soup
lunch flowered into
fine wine salad talk and t’ai chi …
the day closed
diamonds of sunlight danced across the water.
The influence of music is clear in the drum rhythms of Taylor’s work. His poetry displays a delight in sound, repetition and patterns. The best draw image and sound together, such as the poem ‘Listen’:
Listen to the tap tap tap
of the carvers
as with chisel and mallet
they trace their genealogy.
When performing, Taylor combines his poetry with Maori and Western instruments. Many of the poems in A Canoe in Midstream may be better suited to performance, where Taylor’s personality and presence could lift them from the page. For example the poem ‘Te Ihi’, with its breathy rhythm and repetition, begs to be heard: ‘ka ea, ka ea / it is clear, it is clear / whakapiri tonu whakapiri tonu / hold fast, hold fast.’
The most engaging poems arrive like ‘kete’, a six-part poem that layers images of the stars into a mosaic of perspectives: ‘gypsophila / flowers / in a dark / bowl’, glitter against ‘stars / a myriad / of children / sparkling / in the night’. The poem ‘Uncle Hakaraia’ also offers a complex view of Uncle Hakaraia who was only allowed to speak English in school. ‘He was stood in the corner and made to feel / like a dumbcluck and a fool.’ The poem acknowledges the event’s emotional and cultural impact: ‘he speaks impeccable English … when he speaks of school days / his language is bitter.’
One drawback of the collection is the lack of sections. It is unclear which work is new, and which has appeared in previous collections. It is also unclear if the poems are ordered chronologically, and this may disadvantage readers who are new to Taylor’s poetry. There are some loose thematic groupings. Poems about weaving and carving appear together, and are followed by poems about the loss of language and tradition. The centre of the book groups poems of settlement and colonisation, and the end of the collection features animal and family poems. The dedication to the collection reads: ‘these verses are paddles / to the waka / a canoe of poems / in midstream’, and while the book offers a progression of sorts, I am not sure how it reads as a collection.
Another drawback is the length of the collection. The book would be stronger edited down to around one hundred pages. Some poems are noticeably weaker, especially those with summarising titles or punchline endings. While the brevity of some poems is reminiscent of haiku, many of the shorter poems hold no mystery and tend toward generalisation. While there is a certain power and impact in simplicity, the weaker poems make the collection feel like a work in progress. In short: most issues could be solved with a ruthless editorial eye. One poem promises, ‘words are / paltry things / so I turn them / into darts / and give them wings’, but a poem will only soar if it has the space to do so.
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SARAH JANE BARNETT is a poet and reviewer who lives in Wellington. Her reviews have appeared in The Lumière Reader, FishHead Magazine, and Victorious Magazine. Sarah is currently completing a creative writing PhD in the field of ecopoetics.
