Nu Zillund voice

Before coming to the creative writing course I had never paid attention to New Zealand Poetry or literary figures. I wasn't really interested in it, I was too busy reading Bukowski, or Ginsberg, or Blake or listeing to The Doors, or Led Zep and figuring my place in existence rather than my identity (which has become a much more vibrant topic in my writing.) However, the first NZ poet I fell in love with was Tusiata Avia. I saw alot of pride in her work and cynical energy which is also very prominent in my writing. She taught me that even a Samoan female poet can be a crazy cynic like the best of the palangi's. I think she opened up the world of taking pride in your culture (for me anyway) and for so long I had culture cringe and refused to acknowlegde my ethnic makeup. I think that the NZ voice can't really be defined to one sort of note. We strand off in many octaves. We're too much of a multicultural society to have one entirely "Kiwi" voice. I'm glad we don't either, it wouldn't be the same, mixing kapa haka with folk dancing, get real. I guess there is also this sort of NZ literary family thing going on, because you know we're so small. But whenever I go to poetry things everyone sort of knows everybody which is cool. I hugged Taika Waititi at a journal launch FFS. It's cool to think that we all come together even if we don't have a specific sort of NZ identity. We have multiple, feeding into the big melting pot. We all acknowledge the land which is the only unifying thing we need.