Introducing "Pacific Hibiscus" 8th book (poetry) ...

 
This last Friday, I had the honour of having two friends from work: Aaron (last minute M.C.) and Penny (Anglican deacon who blessed the occasion and the book) from Te Wananga o Aotearoa, to assist me in launching my first poetry collection out into the stratosphere (a little too dramatic). They have both supported me along my writing journey and I'm so thankful for neat friends who go the extra mile to assist. God bless you both.

It was also neat to have students from Mangere College attend with their teachers which was a real privilege for me as this was one of the schools that I first taught at as a practicing teacher back in the 1990s before becoming a bonafide (qualified) English teacher. We were also able to share cake and pizza with them as a thanks for participating.

This particular poetry book has been long in the making, as I started writing poetry back in 1990 when I was in Albert Wendt's creative writing class at Auckland University after I had graduated with my first Master's degree. This was when I decided that I wanted to take writing seriously but at that time I didn't know much about publishing. Some of those early poems feature in the poetry book as well as more recent contributions.

I would also like to thank my youngest sis, Maria, for painting the cover designs as the specs that I gave her were around having a woman's face as a silhoutte with red hibiscus and blue for the ocean and she did an amazing work.

Pacific Hibiscus is the title of my first poetry book, as it was a title that I thought about back in the 1990s when I was working Ministry of Education contracts and I knew that I wanted to write stories/poetry etc. that featured women, hence the hibiscus as symbolic of women and Pacific as being a woman from the Pacific i.e. New Zealand Samoan women writer.

I'll publish some poems in my next blog but also now looking forward to gathering material for another book of poetry to launch next year as I could only feature of 35 poems in this current collection on themes of: motherhood, faith, Pasifika identities, how the other half live etc.

Happy Sunday...