Detritus of Empire

Detritus are the pieces that are left when something or someone breaks, falls apart or is destroyed: gravel from rocks, the organic matter from plants. At the edge of an endangered wetland in Te Ika-a-Maui, Robin Peace writes of what is left of a country colonised not just by people but by the plants and creatures they brought with them, especially the most ignored invader: the grass that replaced Aotearoa's forests and lowlands with lawns and farms. Robin's observations of the natural world are meticulous and often surprising, fertilised with the wonder and rage she feels at what's in front of her and supported by her own stories of settlement and displacement.

Otaki writer Robin Peace lives in the margin land of Otepua wetland with her partner, observing and interacting with the natural world. A retired geographer, teacher and academic, her first collection of poetry, A Passage of Yellow Red Birds, was published in 2018. She contributed a poem In the Moment to More Favourable Waters: Aotearoa poets respond to Dante's Purgatory and Intricate Relationships to The Power in Our Truth: the Truth of Our Power.