Tonight is a special night: I'm watching from home on livestream, with people around Aotearoa as well as those gathered in The Piano.
‘He Kōtuku Rereka Tahi’ evokes a glimpse of the rare white heron in flight, and it’s used to describe someone of great mana who is rarely seen. WORD Christchurch celebrates the life and art of Keri Hulme (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, 1947–2021).
We begin with beautiful music from Harry Harrison filling the air.
Stacey Morrison welcomes us all warmly and promises whiskey, waiata, memories, and a bit of a party.
Keri's whānau Matt Salmons and Anna Hulme came on to share different sides of Keri. Matt read an essay from Aranui High written when she was 14. It's quite an astonishing story for which she got 18 out of 20, the teacher called it "thoughtful" and "used Māori words surprisingly well".
Anna Hulme read letters she got as a medical student from her auntie. Jam packed with life advice, general updates, and recipes. It's an absolute tonic to hear about this fun whānau side of Keri:
Travel safely, arrive home happily.
Skim read lots and fly.
Desk jobs are cushy especially with a really good chair.
Love ya, hang in there, thrive.
Whiti Hereaka reads Keri's story The Pluperfect Pā-Wā and a story she has written in response called Sinking and Writing:
"all of the sheilas had either sunk or turned into something else" (Keri Hulme)
"all of those years of trying to keep them alive, and suddenly they were returning the favour" (Whiti Hereaka on potplants - and relationships)
Ariana Tikao wowed us all at Te Piki o Tāwhaki and she does so with a beautiful waiata.
The shape of words meant a lot to Keri, and the way she used te reo Māori. Kōrero is how she shaped her words.
Tina Makereti and Marian Evans
Tina talks about the bone people and reads from the epilogue Moonwater picking:
Noise and riot, peace and quiet, all is music in this sphere.
Tina's response is Word Magic:
Inside books and daydreams she can be happy ... the bone people is a book that carries this word magic, It's a book that holds all the hardest things she has seen in her short life already ...
Marian Evans from the Spiral Collective zooms in and talks about working with Keri.
We listen to Keri herself, a recording of her reading chant for appeasing mother earth.
"I don't know if you enjoyed it" says Keri, "but it was fun to do".
Patricia Grace reckons she and Keri only ever talked about fishing, not writing. Patricia reads from Keri's King Bait and her own story Whitebait from The Dream Sleepers.
Ariana Tikao and Harry Harrison
Ariana reads a poem a Keri wrote in strands:
Why death after being
Why being
Why death
Then sings in response, accompanied by Harry Harrison:
Naked we are born
Naked we leave
from the material we're released.
Rānui Ngārimu met Keri in 1967 - Keri had on a big hat, swanndri, had a knife, and smoked her pipe. Later she took her sister down to Okarito and Keri's whare.
I had the privilege of knowing Keri before she became famous.
Rānui remixed her waiata about Okarito for Keri, and she sung it for us.
Everyone came back on stage to call proceedings to a close. What a night, "To the whiskey bar" was the final rallying cry.
READ
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