{"id":314,"date":"2015-06-26T03:39:52","date_gmt":"2015-06-26T03:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.writehanded.org\/poetry\/?p=314"},"modified":"2015-06-26T03:39:52","modified_gmt":"2015-06-26T03:39:52","slug":"last-born-hinemoana-baker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/2015\/06\/26\/last-born-hinemoana-baker\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Last Born’ – Hinemoana Baker"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m choosing Hinemoana Baker this week for two reasons. One, because she’s a dear friend and I love her work. And two – oops, that’s three. Three, she’s just been chosen for the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writer’s Residency. Extremely exciting.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last Born<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am the last born
\nI move through the crowd with my shiny red wheels
\nI bring with me large animals and flaming spikes in
\ncages
\nI am the last born and I know who I want to vote for
\nI know the identity of the figure in black
\nLow prices are written all over my face
\nI am the last born and I have a long following
\nEverything and everyone is my elder
\nI move through the relatives in my green leaves
\nI eat canoes and drink inlets
\nI have a beard and a small fat crab inside my shell
\nI am the last born the p\u00f5tiki the teina
\nEverything breaks its back over me but there are
\nMany ways to build from scratch and in spite of the fact
\nThat every fourth corner of the land has been walked
\nOver I make everything ready, being the last born
\nI am desired at each event, to lay down the
\nCow leather, to direct people to the location of
\nThe demons, the devils in the tarmac
\nWe all bite something for a living
\nI know not to rave and shout when I reach these places
\nI bring children with me, just the right number
\nOf pumpkins and I sing completely out of tune
\nBuying up all the land around with my lucky sand dollars<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

I love all the lines in this poem, but I particularly love “We all bite something for a living.” That’s just incredible. Stop being so goddamn talented.<\/p>\n

From her website<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Hinemoana Baker is a published poet, a singer-songwriter, recording artist, teacher of creative writing and occasional broadcaster.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Her first book of poetry, ‘m\u0101tuhi | needle<\/a>‘, was co-published in New Zealand and the US in 2004. Actor, writer and artist Viggo Mortensen<\/a>‘s publishing house\u00a0Perceval Press<\/a>\u00a0co-published the book, which features the paintings of Ng\u0101i Tahu artist Jenny Rendall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hinemoana’s first album, ‘pu\u0101wai’ (Jayrem Records, 2004) was a finalist for the NZ Music Awards and the APRA Silver Scrolls M\u0101ori Language award.<\/p>\n

Her second collection of poetry, ‘k\u014diwi k\u014diwi | bone bone’ (Victoria University Press), was launched in Wellington in 2010. She co-edited the anthology ‘Kaupapa: New Zealand Poets, World Issues’ in 2007, and has released four more CDs of music and poetry.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m choosing Hinemoana Baker this week for two reasons. One, because she’s a dear friend and I love her work. And two – oops, that’s three. Three, she’s just been Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}