Tusiata Avia

Tusiata Avia is a poet, performer and children's writer. Her solo stage show, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, premiered in New Zealand in 2002 and has since toured in Austria, Germany, Hawai'i, Australia, Bali and Russia. Her first collection of poetry, also titled Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, was published by Victoria University Press  in 2004. Her latest book of poetry, Bloodclot, was published by VUP in 2009. She held the Fulbright Pacific Writer in Residence at the University of Hawai'i in 2005 and this year she is the Ursula Bethel/ CNZ Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury.

Avia comments: ' "Nafanua goes to Russia and meets some friends from back home", is from Bloodclot, a book-length sequence of poems that tell the story of Nafanua, the Samoan goddess of war, as she leaves the underworld to wander the earth as a half-caste girl from Christchurch. I wrote this while in St Petersburg where I was always coming across rather extraordinary things. Walking down Nevsky one day, I was surprised to see an image of a Maori warrior complete with moko (full face tattoo) used as the emblem of a St Petersburg tourist shop. It gave me the idea of the presence of the Polynesian gods in this place so far away from home.'

Poem: Nafanua goes to Russia and meets some friends from back home

Links

Victoria University Press author page

New Zealand Book Council writer file

nzepc – New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre: online work (includes video and audio, poems, interviews and articles)