Kneel like a prayer full of lynching This is my God-given white The voices of
Tusiata Avia are infinite. She ranges from vulnerable to forbidding to
celebratory with forms including pantoums, prayers and invocations. And in this
electrifying new work, she gathers all the power of her voice to speak directly
into histories of violence. Avia addresses James Cook in fury. She unravels the
2019Â Christchurch massacre, walking us back to the beginning. She describes the
contortions we make to avoid blame. And she locates the many voices that offer
hope. The Savage Coloniser Book is a personal and political reckoning. As it
holds history accountable, it rises in power. ‘Savage is as savage does. And
we're all implicated. Avia breaks the colonial lens wide open. We peer through
its poetic shards and see a savage world outside, inside. With characteristic
savage and stylish wit, Avia holds the word-blade to our necks and presses with
a relentless grace. At the end, you'll feel your pulse anew.’ -Selina Tusitala
Marsh, New Zealand Poet Laureate ‘Tusiata Avia's poetry is a full-body plunge
in winter seas. It's breathtaking, skin tingling and teeth rattling. I feel
alive. It's as real to me as a salt-crested wave smashing me full in the face
until IÂ am nothing but that moment . . . Exhilaration, pain, vulnerability,
joy, cheeky confidence and acknowledgement. But what I don't feel is lonely.’
-Nafanua Kersel, The Hook Cover by Pati Tyrell
Author Biography
Tusiata Avia is an acclaimed poet, performer and children's writer. Her
previous poetry collections are Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (2004; also staged as a
theatre show, most recently Off-Broadway, winning the 2019Â Outstanding
Production of the Year), Bloodclot (2009) and the Ockham-shortlisted Fale Aitu
Spirit House (2016). Tusiata has held the Fulbright Pacific Writer's Fellowship
at the University of Hawai'i in 2005 and the Ursula Bethell Writer in
Residence at University of Canterbury in 2010. She was the 2013 recipient of
the Janet Frame Literary Trust Award, and in 2020 was appointed a Me