Waha Mouth

Id 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 humor and with an eye that seeks out the unlikely image and an ear that forces us to hear afresh the strangeness in our everyday language.

Hinemoana Baker was born in 1968 in Christchurch, raised in Whakatane and Nelson, and has lived for more than 20 years in Wellington and Kapiti. She descends from the Ngai Tahu tribe in the South Island, and from Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Toa and Te Ati Awa in the North Island. Both of her parents also have non-Maori heritage, from England and Bavaria.

The author of two collections of poetry, Hinemoana also edits the online journal of Whitireia New Zealands Creative Writing Programme, and co-edited the anthology Kaupapa: New Zealand Poets, World Issues (The Development Resource Center, 2007). She has performed and read internationally and has released five CDs of music and poetry. 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 is writer in residence at Victoria University in Wellington. waha | mouth is Hinemoana's third collection of poems.

Featured in the 11 August 2014 New Zealand newsletter.
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