Claire Mabey close-reads poetry by Hana Buchanan and James Brown.

I’ve have declared 2026 my year of rest and poetry. Not actually rest, but at least poetry. I have always had a relationship with poetry but this year, which feels even more fragile than the last, it’s hitting me harder than usual. It’s something to do with distillation and potency: poems feel true in a world that can feel unreal. My year of poetic reading started with Bill Manhire and Jenny Bornholdt and has continued on with Amber Esau, Lynn Jenner, Helen Rickerby, James Brown, Hana Buchanan and Dinah Hawken who all have released, or are soon to release, new collections this past month and a bit.

For the revival of this column I’m doing a double-whammy: starting with a shimmering, deceptively simple poem by Hana Buchanan (Ngāti Haumia ki Te Aro, Taranaki iwi, Te Atiawa, Taranaki Whānui ki te Upoko o te Ika) from her collection Kupu Whenua and ending with a curious, funny-sad prose poem from James Brown’s New Days for Old. 

Hana Buchanan is a tangata toikupu – poet, kaikaranga, kaitito waiata – and her book, which includes gorgeous art by Nick Denton, is organised around the structure of pepeha or mihimihi: Maunga (mountain)/ Wai (waterways)/ Kāinga (home) /Waka (waka)/ Manu (birds)/ Whetū-Whetūrangitia (Stars and those who have become stars). Buchanan lives and works from her ancestral lands in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and, thematically, her written work speaks to her lived experience of being mana whenua in a colonised place as well as her desire to share and uplift the stories of the land we live on. Kupu Whenua contains works in te reo Māori, “companion pieces” (note, not translations) in English and some bilingual poems, too. 

The te reo Māori version of the poem is printed first, and then I’ll analyse the companion piece, which is in English.

Paekākā i te pō 

Kua taka te pō –
tū tonu ana ngā rākau
He ara atarau
e hora ake mai nei

Te ara mamaku
e huna ai i ngā tini whetū
anō nei Te Mangōroa
anō nei he ikarangi kē
ngunungunu ai
i ngā pakiaka huhua

Rikoriko mai
whakahīnātori mai
titia mai
Kātahi te whakaohomauri
pai nei!

E ngā whetū rikiriki waiwaiā
E ngā titiwai, tēnā koutou!

Paekākā i te pō (ii)

Night descends
its trees rising upright and constant
A moonlit passage
            unfolding forwards

The mamaku-lined path
hides a swirl of stars
It’s as if the Milky Way
and other galaxies too
are snuggled in
          to a universe of roots

Little glistening drops of water,
tiny stars
twinkle, glitter, glow and shine

Tiny little glow-worms:
Astounded, we greet you!

– Hana Buchanan, Kupu Whenua

Reading notes:

Let’s start with the title: Paekākā i te pō (ii). The (ii) indicates that this is the companion piece to the te reo version that comes before it. Paekākā means the realm, or perch, of the kākā and refers to the land that the Wellington Botanic Garden ki Paekākā was created on, and “i to pō” let us know we’re in the gardens at night. 

Night descends
its trees rising upright and constant
A moonlit passage
               unfolding forwards

I love the way that “Night” is active: “it descends”, and that the trees belong to it – “its trees”. This evokes that uncanny transformation that happens to our familiar landscapes once the sun has gone and night comes down. Here, the trees are “upright and constant” but they’re now of the realm of the moon and stars. “A moonlit passage” sends shivers down the spine and invites us deeper in. The “unfolding forwards” is a surprise in away: the unfolding brings to mind fabric, or the sense of material which is such an apt way to describe the way moonlight renders land in new ways, texturally and sensually. The “forwards” is another compelling, propulsive step into the poem – particularly the way these two words drop down the stanza, unfolding.

The mamaku-lined path
hides a swirl of stars
It’s as if the Milky Way
and other galaxies too
are snuggled in
             to a universe of roots

The path has now gathered specificity: “mamaku-lined”. And I can bring to mind, exactly, the ferns that guard the botanic garden paths; their dark structures and light limbs. Here, at night, they’re shading the traveller from starlight and bringing the night sky down into their world. Buchanan deftly mirrors the “galaxies” of the night with the “universe” of the whenua, the roots as abundant as the Milky Way. I love the way this flips the pathway of the traveller: as if we are now walking over the night and into the secrets of the earth.

Little glistening drops of water,
tiny stars
twinkle, glitter, glow and shine

Tiny little glow-worms:
Astounded, we greet you!

The final stanza burrows into the imagery and gives us droplet stars that mirror the night. “Twinkle, glitter, glow and shine” returns us to a childlike state of wonder. And then, the final surprise, the glow-worm! Even stranger still is that tiny creature that creates its own light and makes a night sky of dim, dark banks and rocks and caves. The voice of the poem surrenders to awe: “Astounded” and begins a conversation. I said before this poem is deceptively simple: and I mean that in the same way that the night can be simple but is in fact intensely complex the closer you look. Paekākā i to pō (ii) revels in the beauty and strangeness and magic of existing with, and alongside, nature. 

I’ve known James Brown’s poetry for a long time: I remember being awed by his linguistic agility when I heard him recite ‘Popocatepetl’ years ago – and have long admired his ability to seemingly reach for an endless reserve of vocabulary and make a poem sing and soar with surprise. The latest collection, New Days for Old, is a series of “prose poems” that illustrate, step by step, a lifetime. Each page carries a verse, a scene, and is odd yet familiar. The poem I’ve chosen below comes early, on page 8, and has no title. 

People’s natures on display everywhere you turn.
Looking around, your eyes meet heads bowed to phones.
You can’t wait to be given one, but in the meantime
demand the pierced nipple lactate into your mouth.
Outside a bumper sticker shouts Burn Coal – Drive
Electric. This makes you want to crawl away and cry,
which, when released you do, because, at 8 months old,
you hear whatever you do ‘is very advanced’.

– James Brown, New Days for Old

Reading notes:

People’s natures on display everywhere you turn.
Looking around, your eyes meet heads bowed to phones.

I love the disappointment of these opening lines. You think that maybe “people’s natures on display” might be specific aesthetic styles, expressions, ways of walking. But it’s just boring old eyes on phones, which is sadly so common as to be true.

You can’t wait to be given one, but in the meantime
demand the pierced nipple lactate into your mouth.

But what a twist! “You can’t wait to be given one”! Who is this person? Well, the answer in the hilarious following line and a half: “in the meantime / demand the pierced nipple lactate into your mouth.” That’s a bottle; which means the subject of this poem is a baby. 

Outside a bumper sticker shouts Burn Coal – Drive
Electric. This makes you want to crawl away and cry,

Oh, god. First the phones, now the climate crisis. What world is this baby emerging into? Ours. What is it, exactly, that makes the baby want to crawl away and cry, though? The knowledge of what they are to endure? Or the nature of cars themselves, so loud and bullying? 

which, when released you do, because, at 8 months old,
you hear whatever you do ‘is very advanced’.

Ha! James Brown is wonderfully deft. This ending is both funny and awful. The familiar voice of the proud parent is there (all parents think their baby is miraculous) but in fact the subject of this poem is advanced, or at least we’re led to believe they might be by the slant of the scene. The voice speaking to the “you” of the poem (this is second person perspective) is instructing that the subject (baby) is responding directly to the bumper sticker. Is this because the baby is already cognisant of the world’s foibles and catastrophes and has instincts enough to run, scared and upset? Or is the voice layering wisdom and experience and language onto our innocent? Probably, both. Either way, poor baby! It’s unfortunately all true but if you read Hana Buchanan’s poem, above, you’ll also learn there’s beauty and wonder to be found, too.

Kupu Whenua by Hana Buchanan is being launched at an event at 3pm, March 29 at Grand Hall, Old Museum Building, Buckle St, Pukeahu, the maunga for Te Aro Pā; and is available to pre-ordered from Unity Books. New Days for Old by James Brown is being launched at 6pm, April 23 at Unity Books Wellington, alongside Dinah Hawkens’ forthcoming book Peace & Quiet, and can be purchased from Unity Books.