“He karanga: poems that call out to those who understand and have been yearning to hear a
voice meant for them. He wero: poems that call out those who get in the way. Ancestors,
family, language and land are everywhere – invoked, described, present, pulsing, overlapping – in this stunning collection that speaks from, about, to, and towards Aotearoa. In so many ways Māori Maid Difficult is a first yet it brings to mind generations of Māori poets who have gone before. Smart, sharp, funny, brittle, supple. Giving and refusing. Irreverent and sensitive. Vulnerable and mysterious. Aroha and hahaha and hā. All at the same time. All in the best ways.”
-Alice Te Punga Somerville, winner of the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry
Cover image: “Te Arero” by Hiria Anderson
Oil on canvas, 2021
Courtesy the artist and Tim Melville Gallery
Photo: Kallan MacLeod
Softcover, 46 pp
Published in the United States of America by Tram Editions
ISBN: 9798890902207
Author
Nicola Andrews (Ngāti Paoa, Pākehā) grew up in Waitākere City, and currently works in San Francisco as a librarian. The winner of the 2023 AAALS Indigenous Writers Prize in Poetry, they are the author of four poetry chapbooks that centre whānau and diasporatanga.
