
Vilsoni Hereniko
Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English, edited by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan (Auckland University Press, 2010) 304 pp., $49.99
In Wendt’s 1976 essay ‘Towards a New Oceania’, he wrote the following about Oceania, of which Polynesia is a part: ‘So vast, so fabulously varied a scatter of islands, nations, cultures, mythologies and myths, so dazzling a creature, Oceania deserves more than an attempt at mundane fact; only the imagination in free flight can hope – if not to contain her – to grasp some of her shape, plumage, and pain.’[i] It is hard to believe that this influential essay was written thirty-five years ago because it is just as relevant today as it was then, when a cultural renaissance was beginning to spread throughout Oceania. Wendt was one of the major catalysts for the arts during this time, and his influence in fostering and encouraging poets to create and publish was just as intense then as it is today.
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