Star Waka

Published on the cusp of the new millennium, Maori poet Robert Sullivan's third book of poems, Star Waka, explores themes of journeying and navigation, moving back and forth in time and focus to confront colonisation, contemporary political issues and personal questions of family and identity. It came with some strings attached: each poem had to feature either a star, a waka (canoe) or the ocean. Within these parameters, and in 2001 lines, Sullivan creates 100 poems that, he says, themselve...