Recorded 16 July 2019 at the University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts Sound Studio.
Tim Page, sound engineer.
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Photo credit: Lizzy Leckie.
Jacqs amidst "Star Waka," an installation by Ngā Turuturu o Te Tara - Coromandel Weavers' Collective for Tuia250 in Whitianga 2019, featuring multimedia installation artist Maureen Lander (Ngāpuhi) and coordinated by weaver Lizzy Leckie. Waka designed by sculptor and jeweller Chris Charteris (Kiribati and Fijian) and name inspired by Robert Sullivan's book of poems Star Waka. Jacqs performed with taonga pūoro artist James Webster (Tainui, Te Arawa and Ngāti Pākehā) both at Wharekaho and in Whitianga and attended Robert's Sunday poetry reading in the Raranga tent at Whitianga (see the "Tuia250 event performance video"). Robert is of Ngāpuhi, Ngāi Tahu and Irish Galway descent. "Ko te ata, ko te āhua hoki o ngā taonga i riro i a rātou. Ko te hei, ko ngā whakakai i mahue tonu" ("It was only the shadow, the reflection of the treasure that they took. The image, the substance was left behind for all eternity").
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Ka hoki nei au ki te mauri o tōku waka a Mataatua,
Ko Pūtauaki ki a Ngāti Awa,
Ko Tawhiuau ki a Tangiharuru,
Ki te rae o Kohi, ko Awatope,
Ko Te Mānuka Tūtahi ki Whakatāne, ko Apanui
Ko te mauri rā i haria mai nei
Hei whakaoho i taku moe!
Ko, ko, ko, koia e ara e!
Tēnā koutou e aku rangatira. Ka nui ngā mihi ki a koutou katoa kei te pānui mai i ēnei kōrero. He uri tēnei o Mataatua, o Te Arawa, o Tainui, o Ngātokimatawhaorua, o Takitimu, o Horouta, o ngā pōti i mau mai i ōku tūpuna Pākehā hoki, kei te mihi atu ki a koutou katoa, nō reira rā, tēnā koutou katoa.
Jacqueline Carter (Ngāti Awa, Waitaha, Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngāti Pākehā, with links to Ngāi Tai, Ngāti Maru and Ngāpuhi) is a poet, composer, mother and teacher aide. She has recently completed a Graduate Diploma in Secondary Teaching at the University of Auckland's Faculty of Education and Social Work. Her hapū are Ngāi Te Hapū, Ngāti Takahanga, Te Patuwai and Ngāi Tūkairangi.
Jacqueline (Jacq or Jacqs) was born in Tāmaki Makaurau / Akarana / Auckland in 1974 and grew up in St Heliers or Te Whanganui-o-Toi. She learned she was 'part-Māori' when she was 16 years old and decided to learn Te Reo Māori at university. One of these poems, 'Te Waka Mataatua, was written after her very first visit to a marae, Te Tii Marae in Kerikeri, Te Tai Tokerau / Northland, in 1991. The visit was part of an annual school trip led by History Teacher Dianne Northcott. The students also visited the resting place of the waka at Tākou Bay after the kaumātua changed their itinerary. Along with other trips to Ōrākau and Rangiriri, the visit ignited Jacq's political consciousness. Subsequently she discovered that her great great grandmother's father Rihara Te Reke had settled in Kerikeri and had another whānau, the Rihari or Richards family.
Jacq has been published in national and international poetry anthologies, including the Montana Award-winning Whetū Moana and its sequel Mauri Ola, both edited by Albert Wendt, Robert Sullivan and Reina Whaitiri. She is also a contributor to the anthology Ngā Puna Wai Kōrero, edited by Robert and Reina, and her work has appeared in all issues of the journal Ora Nui, edited by Anton Blank and others. Jacq has set her sights on a Master of Creative Writing for which she will complete her own collection.
Poem notes
These poems span 28 years of writing and deal primarily with issues of identity, loss of sovereignty and reclamation and reassertion (and one love poem for good measure). I hear them as waiata and/or songs: they have a rhythm in my head that is hopefully captured by the recordings. The best ones write themselves and I regard them as gifts or koha from beyond, be it from God, the atua (gods) and/or tūpuna (ancestors including grandparents).
Nō reira kei te mihi ki tō tātou nei Atua, nāna nei ngā mea katoa, tae noa mai ki ngā atua Māori, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Ā ki a koutou kua wehe ki tua, haere, haere, haere atu rā. Koutou ki a koutou, mātou ki a mātou, tihe mauri ora!
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