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Cape Reinga. (Photo by Education Images/UIG via Getty Images.)
Cape Reinga. (Photo by Education Images/UIG via Getty Images.)

BooksMay 31, 2019

The Friday Poem: ‘All the way to Te Rerenga Wairua’ by Ana Iti

Guest writer
Cape Reinga. (Photo by Education Images/UIG via Getty Images.)
Cape Reinga. (Photo by Education Images/UIG via Getty Images.)

New poetry by Wellington poet and artist Ana Iti.

 

All the way to Te Rerenga Wairua

Does the spirit intrinsically know what direction to travel
to get to Hawaiki? Or Heaven?

Is there some colonial idea of blood quantum
that first has to be observed?

Would the saliva of the intangible get processed by ancestry.com
and then split, dispersing accordingly?

 

Another version of eternity soon to be available,
uploading a life’s worth of the most mundane correspondence,
a chatbot

All those emails and text messages
located traditionally

as you might expect, buried below ground
through cables under sea.

Thanatos in the shape of a stray anchor

 

Maybe, like the spiders escaping the low land of Papamoa
After the flooding of Cyclone Cook

It instead spits out a thread, spinnerets pulsing ectoplasm
or whatever is necessary

Until that strand is so vast proportionally
that it catches on a current

Transporting them / you / us

Keep going!
Detail: cover of Vincent O’Malley’s The New Zealand Wars
Detail: cover of Vincent O’Malley’s The New Zealand Wars

BooksMay 31, 2019

Unity Books bestseller chart for week ending May 31

Detail: cover of Vincent O’Malley’s The New Zealand Wars
Detail: cover of Vincent O’Malley’s The New Zealand Wars

The essential best-selling book chart in New Zealand, recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.

AUCKLAND

1 The New Zealand Wars: Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa by Vincent O’Malley (Bridget Williams Books, $40)

Please read this breathtaking extract from some of O’Malley’s finest work.

2 The Meaning of Trees by Robert Vennell (HarperCollins, $55)

We’ve nabbed the bits on supplejack and ongaonga for you.

3 Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $23)

The last people in New Zealand not to own Normal People now own Normal People.

4 Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crises (Or Don’t) by Jared Diamond (Penguin, $40)

Troubled people.

5 Less by Andrew Sean Greer (Little Brown, $25)

Funny people.

6 Ordinary People by Diana Evans (Random House, $26)

People who already own Normal People flock to Ordinary People.

7 The Overstory by Richard Powers (Vintage, $26)

Tree people.

8 Sincerity/Irony by Hera Lindsay Bird (KLIM Foundry, $47)

HLB limited edition, get in!

9 Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi (Sandstone, $27)

Non-people-based bodies.

10 Attraction by Ruby Porter (Text Publishing, $37)

Road people.

WELLINGTON

1 The New Zealand Wars: Nga Pakanga o Aotearoa by Vincent O’Malley (Bridget Williams Books, $40)

Did we mention you can read an extract here?

2 A Mistake by Carl Shuker (Victoria University Press, $30)

If you missed it, this piece co-written by the excellent Mr Shuker is outstandingly good and important.

3 Marilyn Waring: The Political Years by Marilyn Waring (Bridget William Books, $40)

We’ve got an extract here and an upcoming interview with Chlöe Swarbrick soon – stay tuned!

4 Jobs, Robots & Us by Kinley Salmon (Bridget Williams Books, $40)

Non-human people.

5 Attraction by Ruby Porter (Text Publishing, $37)

Still road people.

6 Dead People I Have Known by Shayne Carter (Victoria University Press, $40)

Dead people.

7 Upheaval: How Nations Cope With Crisis (Or Don’t) by Jared Diamond (Allen Lane, $40)

Terrified people.

8 Finding France Hodgkins by Mary Kisler (Massey University Press, $45)

“The difficulty is to be yourself, assimilate all that is helpful, but keep your own individuality, as your most precious possession – it is one’s only chance”: the artist, in a 1903 letter to her mother, quoted in Canvas.

9 Children of Harvey Milk by Andrew Reynolds (Oxford University Press, $45)

Courageous people.

10 Shirley Smith: An Examined Life by Sarah Gaitanos (Victoria University Press, $40)

Courageous person.

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