mātuhi | needle

Many cultures converge and challenge each other in the poetry of Hinemoana Baker. The need to belong to the extended and nuclear family is at odds with the equally pressing need to be an individual in the world.

In mātuhi | needle, her debut collection, there are poems of praise, love and gratitude. Words, phrases and cultural concepts in the Māori world are given a new and different life via her love and recovery of te reo, which can be translated as 'the voice'. Other poems are inscribed with the sordid and the badly-behaved, or admit to feelings of inadequacy and avoidance. Some reflect a history of personal and political invasion and occupation. All are alive with grace, intellect and control.

mātuhi | needle was published jointly with Perceval Press, a California publisher owned and operated by Pilar Perez and Viggo Mortensen. It is a beautifully designed hardback, featuring five paintings by the Ngāi Tahu artist Jenny Rendall. It includes a CD featuring Hinemoana reading six of her poems, and a song excerpted from her album Puawai, released simultaneously by Jayrem Records.

Hinemoana Baker (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa and Te Āti Awa) is a poet, performer and musician. In 1998 she was awarded the Stout Research Centre / Reader's Digest Writing Fellowship, and in 2002 she completed a master's degree in creative writing. She has published poetry and short fiction and has written for stage and film. An accomplished producer and a talented musician, Hinemoana's first album was released at the same time as mātuhi | needle, her first book. 

'Apart from the polished precision and lyrical quality of her work, Hinemoana Baker's poetry constantly surprises with the richness and originality of its observations.' —Joe Wylie, Takahē