New Zealand only NZ$35.00

There are myriad Aotearoa New Zealand poets who live overseas; several eminent, others relatively unknown. This significant anthology is the first to give voice to these expatriate Kiwi and their distinctive perspectives, widening the parameters of New Zealand poetry well beyond its shores.

‘What does it mean to be expatriate? Rapatahana and Gallas bring together a generous selection of work by poets who come and go from Aotearoa New Zealand. By calling their anthology Te Pūrere / The Exodus, Rapatahana and Gallas signal their intention to test an old proposition: you can take the poet out of Aotearoa but perhaps not Aotearoa out of the poet.’ 

                                   ––Michele Leggott

John Gallas and Vaughan Rapatahana were destined to create an anthology like this since for many years those writers have been migratory birds, cultural hunter-gatherers. As Rapatahana, the ‘indigenous expatriate’, describes his exploring: ‘from the east I travel / to the east I rebound / carting the lumber of assorted cultures / the hardware of hybrid emotion . . . // I become a different jigsaw.’ The anthology is a valuable reminder that we are all jigsaws in progress, not confined to a single identity.

                       ––Roger Horrocks, Introduction