All Tomorrow's Poets 2016: Makanaka Tuwe
Suri and Cait meet the inimitable Maka in our next National Poetry Day interview.
Suri: Is there any poetry that you grew up with that still resonates with you now?
Maka: It wasn't until I started doing English literature in highschool that I read my favourite poem, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I was in Year 11 and had just come out of my rebellious stage of my life, which was brought on by this on-going trauma of displacement. That was the first poem that really resonated with me. In school they teach you that poetry should rhyme and have some sort of flow to it, but the poetry that I like tends to be a really raw play on words; really sharp and to the point, almost quite radical- the stuff people are uncomfortable talking about. That's the type of poetry that struck out to me.
Suri: I find it really interesting, the way that poetry is taught in school and the way that we consume it- there's just such a big difference. When you're writing yourself, are you quite conscious of the formal rules you were taught and trying to unteach yourself those rules?
Maka: I've always been a bit of a rebel. From a very young age I was questioning everything and doing things the way they weren't meant to be done. When it comes to writing, it doesn't feel like a conscious effort- I just write down whatever's on my mind. When I first began writing, I always wanted to make the first draft perfect. The older and more self-aware I've become, I've realized that I can just sit there with a pen and a piece of paper and I can shut my brain out and write whatever is in my heart, soul, and spirit in that moment. I've had moments where I've been doing laundry and thought 'Oh my god' and just grabbed a massive notebook. I feel like art and poetry come from the soul, so when people write, there should be a conscious effort not to write to a particular standard or style, because it's an extention of who you are. Otherwise, if you write to a particular style or standard, it almost feels inauthentic.
Suri: I think also, those quite conventional standards for poetry are archaic, in that they don't keep up with the way that not only language is constantly changing, but that the entry-points to poetry are also changing. I think it's really great hearing the creative process of someone who's navigating new waters in poetry. Are there any other new poets that you admire?
Maka: Jarah. Jarah, Jarah, Jarah. She's a very good friend of mine. She's one of my favourite poets in the world, because she doesn't a flying fuck, and I think that's really important in the creative community. There's this element of the elite in the creative community, and there's almost a certain way of doing things and presenting yourself. [Jarah] just flicks the middle finger to all of that and speaks her poetry. She talks about indoctrination and colonization of people of colour, the brutality that continues to happen to happen to indigenous bodies. She invited a bunch of us to come up on stage with her and each of us brought our ancestors there. and she was took us through the process of being a woman of colour, not of this place, and the experiences we go through. It doesn't look beautiful but it's very powerful. I also love Bell Hooks, Alice Walker, the late Maya Angelou, Taiye Selasi. I really like poets and authors who speak about things that are uncomfortable
Suri: It was really interesting hearing you talk much earlier about finding new ways of presenting your work and not liking formal presentation styles. I feel like a lot of the terrible and uninformed ways that people talk about spoken word are caught up in these racialized and class-stratified ways of understanding 'formal' or 'worthy' poetry.
Maka: I host spoken word nights at Neck of the Woods once a month. I've asked them to stop calling it spoken word; it's freedom of expression. Once you say spoken word, people feel like they have to put on a voice. Honestly, if you have shit to say and you grab your phone and speak to me the way you're speaking to me now, that's still your voice. You don't have to change anything. There is this real pressure for people to perform their work in a particular way in order for them to fit into a particular genre, and it shouldn't be like that.
Cait: I've been asking the other poets to ask questions of each other- Owen wanted to know about people in your immediate community that you look up to.
Maka: I always find it really interesting when people ask who their heroes are, and people always answer with names that are so far removed from them- which is fine. I always look around me because I feel like the women that I surround myself with are doing amazing things. Each and every single individual that I'm blessed to know is doing something great for themselves.
Suri: Being a creative person who's been publically interviewed, do you feel like sometimes you're asked questions that are tailored in specific ways; questions that they might not ask of creatives who don't identify as women of colour?
Maka: Oh, hell yeah. I always want to know what the questions are, just so I can be like "Oh, by the way, number five? Not happening. Number 10, you can forget about it. And number 3, I can't figure out where you had me fucked up asking me a question like this?" Some of it feels like a micro-agression, you know? Things like questioning the relationship between me and my father. I get it, I know the media doesn't portray black families or families of colour in a great light, but that's not my reality. I love New Zealand, but sometimes they tailor the questions to make it seem like New Zealand saved my life.
Suri: What doors did K Road open up to you?
Maka: I hosted my first fashion show-case on K Road at Tikaranga Trust. It was really weird, I was on K Road one day, and I was trying to go somewhere else and I ended up walking up the stairs to K FM, and I walked in and I was like 'Duh?' It was so funny, I was meant to go to the building across the road but I got my GPS messed up and I ended up upstairs at K FM. A few of my friends are creatives on K Road, and places like Neck of the Woods have been great for spoken word nights.
Suri: If anything, K Road tries to foster support and a community for creatives in a way that many places in Auckland don't.
Maka: Exactly. I love K Road because everyone's just doing them, and I really appreciate that. I really appreciate that everyone is so opening and so welcoming of each other. You could be sitting outside Verona with your friends, and there'll be randoms there, and the next thing you know, you're talking and looking each other up on Facebook, and then someone's coming over to your house for dinner. That's the vibe that I like, because I've always come from a collectivist background.
Suri: Tell us more about your spoken word nights at Neck of the Woods.
Maka: I've titled them Freedom of Expression, and there's a different one each month. So I was sitting at home one day, and one of the girls got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to host spoken word nights at Neck of the Woods. I was like 'Cool, perfect. I don't know what I'm doing, but let's do it'. The first theme was womanhood, and it was about dissecting the experiences of women. I always say to people at the very beginning, 'This is a space for you to be you. This is a safe space. Feel free to feel whatever you want. You can come on stage, and you can scream if you want. Just don't scream too loud, because I like my ears'. The second theme was about problematic hyper-masculinity. I started out talking about my dad and my brother, the first men that I'd ever come in contact with. We had guys coming up on stage talking about their suicide attempts because they don't feel like they're man enough. It was beautiful. The third theme was about people's perceptions of Africa. Next week's theme is about questionable intimacy. People always think that intimacy is about two people, but whatever impacts your being or your essence, that's intimate to you. Initially, I was going to open it up with how I met my current boyfriend, but now I'm going to open it up by reading out all the names of the people who have been brutalised in America, because as a woman of colour, that impacts me. They're all open mic, and I usually ask two or three of my friends to share some pieces, and I usually have five reserves aside, and sometimes I pick out a few people from the audience.
Suri: Do you think creating a safe-space for poets cultivates better work?
Maka: I think it does. As I was saying to you before, art is for the soul and the soul needs to be nurtured. I do my best to do everything based on a love ethic, so because of that, I believe safe-spaces are so important. I feel sometimes that when you're a creative, you become a little bit more hyper-sensitive to a lot of things, so even sharing your work can be something that's harrowing and traumatic. Safe spaces allow you to be more comfortable in yourself and more comfortable in your magic, which enables creative work that is an extension of how magical you are as a being.
