Rangikura

Maori mythology and endless summers: the sparkling second collection from a daring new poetic voice

I am made in the image of my mother ...
I am made in the image of / my mountain / my river / my whenua

In Rangikura, plastic tiaras melt into boiling rivers, and family memories blur with ancestral mythologies. Satanic stepbrothers play jenga while the deity Mahuika burns - and the temperature is rising. Here, anger and loss, history and pop culture are spun into verses woven with vernacular and Te Reo Maori. At the collection's centre, our protagonist whirls through a love/hate story for the internet age, facing the sting of unanswered texts and unmet expectations with wit, sensibility and devastating glamour.

Rangikura is the captivating second collection from award-winning poet Tayi Tibble. From feminism to colonialism, skuxes to daddies, wild swimming to schoolboy hakas, these poems at once mark the end of the world and the dawn of a new day. Poignant, hilarious and liberatory, Rangikura reminds us that the personal is sometimes political, the political is always personal, and poetry can be revolutionary.

Reviews

Tibble speaks about beauty, activism, power and popular culture with compelling guile, a darkness, a deep understanding and sensuality