On 16 January 2008 New Zealand poet Hone Tuwhare died in Dunedin. Tuwhare was a Living Icon of New Zealand Arts, an award instituted by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand to honour New Zealand artists. Their website describes Hone as ‘New Zealand's most distinguished Maori poet’, but I prefer to say simply that he was one of New Zealand’s greatest poets. David Eggleton, himself a poet, describes Hone’s work as follows:
‘For Tuwhare words are musical notes of bells, of nose flutes. They are the rattle of milk bottles in crates, the hiss of tyres on a wet road, the stir of trees creaking in a storm’ (‘The Lyric Essence’, New Zealand Listener, 31 January 1998).
I attended the memorial service held in First Church Dunedin on the twentieth. There was little in the way of church liturgy or hymning, but many eulogies. Together the speakers painted a warm picture of the Hone we had known: quicksilver, loveable, humorous, wise and witty. And many other things besides. One of the most moving and defining moments — one Hone would have loved — was when we were asked to stand up and sing You are my sunshine, unaccompanied. The singing was vigorous and the voices rose emphatically at the words: ‘You'll never know, dear, how much I love you’.
Haere ra, arohanui.
If you want to find out more about Hone, here is a link to a website dedicated to him. The site contains several of Hone's poems. The New Zealand online encyclopedia Te Ara has a link to an audio recording of a poetry reading by Hone. And TVNZ has a video clip of an interview with him. This clip is about 14 minutes long and includes snippets from a poetry reading at the Globe Theatre in Dunedin. When you follow this link, have patience. TVNZ first shows an ad, before you can play the actual clip.
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