Poetry
Some Modern Poetry from the New Hebrides
Albert Wendt · 1975
Synopsis
The anthology brings together poems by twelve young writers from the New Hebrides, three of them women, among them Mildred Sope, Donald Kalpokas, Leonard Garae, Loreen Ala and Kali Vatoko. According to Albert Wendt, who introduces it, it then contained almost all the poetry written by the country's young poets. Many of these texts, in English with passages in Bislama, had first appeared in the review Mana.
Context
Published in Suva in 1975 by Mana Publications for the South Pacific Creative Arts Society, the anthology belongs to a series that Wendt devoted to recent poetry from Fiji, Western Samoa, the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands. It was reprinted in 1983, after independence, under a title bearing the country's new name. Mikaela Nyman recalls that Mildred Sope wrote her poem “Chusum/Choice” in the course Wendt taught in Suva.
Who it is for
For discovering the first modern poets of Vanuatu, who wrote between English and Bislama.
Prizes and reception
Wendt quoted lines by Mildred Sope, “I weep for our people”, in his essay Towards a New Oceania in 1976.
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