Visible at Verb

The Verb Readers and Writers Festival kicks off in Wellington next week, and woven through all parts of the programme are Māori writers, voices and artists.

That’s a deliberate and welcome development, writes one of the festival programmers, Damien Levi.

 

“What’s good for Māori is good for everyone.” This sentiment has appeared repeatedly in my circles recently, whether we’re talking about healthcare, governance, or arts funding. It resonates with me: If something works for us as Māori, it’s going to work for Pākehā, tauiwi and anyone else it needs to serve.

It makes me think about how I can set things up for Māori in the literary world where I work.

This history of Māori literature in Aotearoa is not a long one. The first book published in te reo Māori was a translation of the New Testament in 1837 by William Colenso, which was used to religiously colonise tangata whenua. It only took 145 years before Witi Ihimaera became the first Māori writer to publish a book, Pounamu Pounamu, in 1972. Frankly, it’s past time to flip the script.

Over the past two years that I’ve been involved with the Verb Readers and Writers Festival as a programmer, I’ve observed the festival’s commitment to its Te Tiriti partner, Te Hā o Ngā Pou Kaituhi Māori. I can see that they’re genuinely pursuing a reciprocal relationship that provides Māori with an equitable place, not only within the festival programme itself, as artists and attendees, but at a decision-making level as well.

I’m not a member of Te Hā, but the approach extends beyond that partnership to all Māori who engage with the festival. There’s a recognition that Māori aren’t a monolith and that diverse ideas and programming result in a richer experience for writers and audience members.

This year’s festival has been created collaboratively, with Trinity Thompson-Browne (Ngāti Kahungunu, Muaūpoko) and Mariwakiterangi Paekau (Tainui, Waikato, Maniapoto, Kahungunu ki Heretaunga) programming on behalf of Te Hā, Emma Ng and me.

Our collective programming, with its notable cohort of Māori writers, feels particularly pertinent in the current political climate, where challenges to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, anti-te reo Māori sentiment, and the disestablishment of Māori-focused organisations and initiatives have become commonplace.

You can see this in events from Te Hā such as the rangatahi-led I Wouldn’t Want to Grow Up in Your Time which explores the generational pros and cons of writing in 2024 through the lens of young Māori. In the session, Salient’s Te Huihui Tran, writing student Kimihia Garcia-Grace, and Eva Hakaraia of the skate and culture mag Wozer, sit down to kōrero through this provocation — “I wouldn’t want to grow up in your time!” — with Nadia Solomon.

There’s also Story Sovereignty as Living Practice: Trans-Tasman Edition, discussing how Indigenous people can hold on to the mana of their stories through the publishing process. This session is especially exciting as we welcome Aboriginal writers Bebe Oliver and Lay Maloney to wānanga.

Such knowledge-sharing and kaupapa-led events are a valuable facet of Verb, providing opportunities for our Māori writers to upskill and gain knowledge in the world of literature and publishing.

This year, we also have Te Aro Pā poets sharing kōrero and kupu at Write Well. This group of writers descend from the whenua of our capital city, where Verb is taking place, and are united and guided by their shared whakapapa.

In my programming for the festival, Verb has also allowed me to indulge some of my specific literary passions. As editor of the online arts and culture journal bad apple, this year I’ve been exploring how queer-identifying Māori and Pasifika people feel in the context of their whakapapa, asking the question: “What kind of ancestor do you want to be?”

When I published Sinead Overbye’s contribution to this “future ANCESTORS” collection (her beautiful “Whakapapa Portraits”), one whakaaro in particular stood out to me when she asked: “I am often trying to find a place for myself within a vast whakapapa where queer stories like mine have been lost. Where do I fit? Were there others like me in the past?”

This shared longing to know where one fits, but not having the stories to turn to, to find ourselves, put the idea together for me. This is a topic wrestled with by our whanaunga takatāpui across the motu.

So, in the Verb session, future ANCESTORS: LGBTQ+ lineages, Sinead is joined by Rangimarie Sophie Jolley and Herbee Bartley, to look forward at those who will look back at us. In their panel discussion, they’ll attempt to reconcile what we can best do for our descendants in these times of multiple crises.

Herbee’s perspective, for example, as someone same-sex married, as a fa’afafine son, and as the “baby daddy of two Indigenous, Pacific babies”, is exactly one of the multitudes of experiences this kaupapa attempts to inhabit.

I’m eternally thankful to see this session nestled in a series of free kaupapa-Māori-focused events, as I feel strongly that such mātauranga is not something to be gatekept by a ticket price.

This is the second year in a row that Verb has offered a series of free kaupapa Māori events on the Saturday of the festival, allowing broader engagement, wānanga and accessibility for our community. If you’re interested in the creative processes of kaituhi Māori and generational conversations around writing, you’ll no doubt want to have a seat at the Tapere Nui Theatre in Te Auaha on Saturday, November 9.

While I am genuinely excited about the events I’ve surveyed here, what makes our programme truly fantastic is that it reflects the multitude of Māori in existence in the literary world. We have more than 40 Māori artists programmed across the four days, platformed across many contexts.

The 2024 festival programme features, non-exhaustively, Michelle Rahurahu on her Māori tragicomedy road trip novel, Miriama Aoake getting in on a hearty rugby league convo, Nicola Andrews discussing Pacific publishing in the US with Manuia Henrich, and Te Kahu Rolleston, Dallas Karangaroa and Teirangi Klever protesting through poetry alongside Abdul Samad Haidari.

This work makes me think of something I wrote in issue one of PŪHIA, in the essay, “The Volcanic Cones Are Alive with the Voices of Māori,” because the statement is still valid.

“I feel energised by our presence, our ability to take up space in a medium that was once used against us. I want Pākehā to pay attention; to see the hunger for our stories.”

I’ve spoken a lot about “the Māori programming”, but, returning to the key sentiment here, this is programming for everyone. Contemporary Māori stories don’t exist somewhere outside the context of “New Zealand”. Regardless of who you are, there is a sliver of yourself to be reflected back in our writing. If you’re respectful and ready to listen and learn, then no matter who you are, you’re welcome to come along and enjoy, because our literary scene is all the richer when we support one another.

And buy a book while you’re there too — get these authors some coin.

Damien Levi (Image supplied)

Damien Levi (Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāpuhi) is a publisher, editor and arts facilitator based in Tāmaki Makaurau. He is the lead editor of the online arts and literature journal bad apple, founder of Āporo Press and co-editor of the poetry anthology Spoiled Fruit: Queer Poetry from Aotearoa (2023) alongside Amber Esau. His poetry and essays have been published online and in print.

E-Tangata, 2024