waha | mouth

‘I’d like to think that opening this book to read is like standing at the mouth of a cave, or a river, or a grave, with a candle in your hand.’ 
—Hinemoana Baker

Grief, death, infertility – Hinemoana Baker confronts a personal and societal darkness in this new collection of poems but does so with surprising humour and with an eye that seeks out the unlikely image, an ear that forces us to hear afresh the strangeness in our everyday language.

Hinemoana Baker was born in 1968 in Christchurch, raised in Whakātane and Nelson, and has lived for more than 20 years in Wellington and Kāpiti. She descends from the Ngāi Tahu tribe in the South Island, and from Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa and Te Āti Awa in the North Island. Both of her parents also have non-Māori heritage, from England and Bavaria. The author of several collections of poetry, Hinemoana has performed and read her work internationally. In 2009 she was the Arts Queensland Poet in Residence; in 2010 she was one of thirty-eight writers in residence at the University of Iowa International Writing Programme; and in 2014 she was writer in residence at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University in Wellington. waha | mouth is her third collection of poems.

Cover: Sian Torrington, ‘cave 4’
Author photo by Creek Waddington