Siobhan Harvey 

The Savage Coloniser Book by Tusiata Avia (Victoria University Press, 2021), 96pp, $25; Magnolia 木蘭 by Nina Mingya Powles (Seraph Press, 2021), 82pp, $30

Now that the glitz, commotion and hype of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are over for another year, readers are left to the books themselves. By now we know those that made the longlist, those that made the shortlist and, undoubtedly meritorious also, those that didn’t. In this last category one might whisper—or, post-literary appraisal, can one say roar?—authors and titles such as Kay McKenzie Cooke’s uplifting third collection Upturned (The Cuba Press), Rata Gordon’s Second Person (Victoria University Press) and Oscar Upperton’s tremendous New Transgender Blockbusters (Victoria University Press). This, of course, is the nature of any prize-giving beast—subjectivity. It is also the nature of the review and the reviewer. The celebrations and commiserations roundly completed, it falls to me to bring my subjectivity to two books that made the illustrious shortlist category in the aforementioned awards: The Savage Coloniser Book by Tusiata Avia and Nina Mingya Powles’ much heralded (both nationally and internationally) Magnolia 木蘭.  [Read more…]

Erik Kennedy

National Anthem by Mohamed Hassan (Dead Bird Books, 2020), 68pp., $35; Childwood by Denis Welch (Steele Roberts, 2019), 64pp., $20; The Sets by Victor Billot (Otago University Press, 2021), 118pp., $27.50

The ‘national anthem’ of Mohamed Hassan’s second book of poems, National Anthem, is built on a clever contradiction: it is not actually meant to be a national anthem at all, as it is sceptical of the very idea of nation states. As the title poem puts it:

I pledge myself to

no flag

no border

no house of trees

no fairy tale past

no charismatic king

no industry of false profits

burying their dead in the sand [Read more…]