Poetry
No Ordinary Sun
Hone Tuwhare · 1964
Synopsis
The poem that gives the collection its title addresses a tree, struck by the light of the cloud haloed by an atomic explosion, and speaks to it as to a living being. The other pieces range from childhood memories to love poems, from elegy and lament to protest, against apartheid in particular, in O Africa. The landscape takes on a body there: nature is personified, addressed directly, and the poet makes it speak.
Context
Blackwood and Janet Paul published it in Auckland in 1964, under a cover by Warwick Bradshaw showing the explosion of an atomic bomb seen from space, with a preface by Mason, a trade-unionist poet, who hailed in him a Maori writing in English without ceasing to draw his strength from his own people. Several pieces had already appeared in magazines. The seven hundred copies of the first printing sold out in ten days, and the title poem has since been taken up by the anti-nuclear movement.
Who it is for
A slim collection, never translated into French. Several poems, made for the ear, are best read aloud.
Prizes and reception
Welcomed with enthusiasm and reprinted many times, it ranks among the most widely read poetry collections in the country's history.
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