Star Waka: Poems by Robert Sullivan - Paperback

by Robert Sullivan (Author)

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, themselves function like a waka: 'members of the crew change, the rhythm and the view changes - it is subject to the laws of nature'.

Author Biography

Robert Sullivan is the author of a number of books of poetry, a graphic novel, and a prize-winning book of Māori legends for children. He co-edited, with Albert Wendt and Reina Whaitiri, the anthologies of Polynesian poetry in English Whetu Moana and Mauri Ola. In 1998 he was the Literary Fellow at the University of Auckland and in 2001 he was the Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Hawai'i Manoa, where he taught creative writing for some years. He now teaches creative writing at Manukau Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.