Ransack

In Ransack, essa may ranapiri addresses the difficulty of assembling and understanding a fractured, unwieldy self through an inherited language -- a language whose assumptions and expectations ultimately make it inadequate for such a task. These poems seek richer, less hierarchical sets of words to describe ways of being. Punctuated by a sequence of letters to Virginia Woolf's character Orlando, this immersive collection is about discovering, articulating, and defending -- to oneself and to others -- what it means to exist outside of the western gender binary, as takatapui. It describes an artist in a state of becoming, moving from Te Kore through Te Po and into the light.

Featured in the 4 June 2019 New Zealand newsletter.
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