Why do you believe wider recognition of te reo Māori literature is so important?
Because Māori are the tangata whenua of Aotearoa New Zealand, and because te reo Māori is an official language here. And as importantly, Māori have a strong historical literary tradition – often oral initially. Te reo language and literature then opens an entirely different way of seeing things – another ontological perspective entirely.
Why is it important for students to engage with multicultural poetry?
Related to my point above, multicultural poetry opens up wide and diverse vistas for others from different cultures to learn, and empathise, and explore viewpoints and visions that may well differ from their own. Thus, multiculturalism encourages social harmony and social awareness of differences.
How do you approach helping students find their own voice in writing?
By introducing and exposing students to a wide array of writers’ work, and by encouraging students via writing exercises – for example, acrostic poetry – whereby they begin and continue to create their own ways of writing.
If teachers could take away one key idea from your work, what would it be?
That creating and appreciating multicultural literature – of whatever genre – is fun and is not difficult. Moreover, that it is vital and important – and all the more so as New Zealand becomes increasingly multicultural.
Do you have a favourite poet or poets who never fail to inspire you?
Rather than one single poet or poets I am inspired by individual poems, or sometimes collections of poems as in an anthology with an underlying theme. However, that being said, I do admire ngā toikupu by Jackie Sturm and Hinewirangi, and globally, I’m inspired by Sylvia Plath.
About Vaughan Rapatahana
Vaughan Rapatahana (Te Ātiawa) commutes between homes in Hong Kong, Philippines, and Aotearoa New Zealand. He is widely published across several genre in both his main languages, te reo Mäori and English and his work has been translated into Bahasa Malaysia, Italian, French, Mandarin, Romanian, Spanish. He earned a Ph. D from the University of Auckland and is a critic of the agencies of English language proliferation and the consequent decimation of indigenous tongues.
Rapatahana is one of the few authors who consistently writes in and is published in te reo Māori (the Māori language). It is his mission to continue to do so and to push for a far wider recognition of the need to write and to be published in this tongue.
