The Friday Poem: ‘Kei te whakaako au i taku kurī/I am teaching my dog Māori’ by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman
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New verse by Christchurch writer Jeffrey Paparoa Holman.
Kei te whakaako au i taku kurī/I am teaching my dog Māori
I am teaching my dog Māori.
Nobody will object
outside the supermarket
when I tie Tiaki to the bike stand
and bark, “E noho!”
tenderly.
“Enoho, what a lovely name!”
one will say; then another,
“What’s wrong with Jack?
It’s a Jack Russell, isn’t it?”
“Āe, tika tāu, ko Tiaki te ingoa!”
I’ll reply, carefully
so as not to offend.
You can’t be too careful
when speaking Dog
to careless ears. On
windy days out on the park,
I’ll toss Tiaki tennis
balls, call, “Mauria mai e te kurī,
kia tere!” Cricketers in white
will cheer, “Oh my Dog, did
you hear that? That wee Jack Russell,
speaking Māori?” Tiaki cocks
an ear, then cocks a leg.
Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, 2018
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Jeffrey Paparoa Holman
Jeffrey Paparoa Holman is the author of Now When It Rains, a memoir published by Steele Roberts in November 2018. He has written nine collections of poetry, including Blood Ties: New and Selected Poems 1963-2016 (Canterbury University Press, 2017); Dylan Junkie, a collection of His Bobness fanboy poems (Måkaro Press, 2017.) Jeff was born in London in 1947.
