Plastic

by Stacey Teague

you see a photo of yourself / pressed behind plastic / three years old in a white skivvyIn Plastic, Stacey Teague reaches beyond the frame of her known world to find a way back to te ao Maori. Hers is a complicated, joyful route, full of conversations with ancestors, old places and herself. In form these poems range from plain-speaking prose and concrete poetry to odes and spells; in mood they are just as restless, taking in those times when life feels as big as a movie screen and times when it is more like ‘ a loose stone to kick down the path' .Gathered here are names that travel through time, failed photos of the moon, and love like a feather in the throat. There are encounters with Hine-te-iwaiwa, the bird-woman Kurangaituku, Hine-nui-te-po, and Hinemoana as she erodes the land with her wildness. This whole-hearted collection shows us how many ways there are to search for one' s bones and at last get to know them.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

Published March 19, 2024

Reviews

[Hazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very insightful, as a pākeha person, to better understand what it's like to grow up mixed race/Māori-Pākeha.
The author clearly put a lot of heart and mana into this book. It focuses primarily on the author's experiences struggling to find her place and sense of belonging when she was not raised "Māori". It also touches on her experiences being queer/takatāpui.

The reason I'm not rating it higher is a lot of the poems at the start and a big one at the end are all written in plain speaking prose style which is just not my cup of tea at all.

I found some of the other poems very moving and the poem shaped like a leaf stood out to me as a very creative way to present a poem.

I enjoyed this book overall and would recommend it to anyone that wants to read more poetry by Māori poets or is interested in the subject matter.

[Lulu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This puka reads like a wāhine I’m not yet so yields to me both a sense of taboo and skin-type intimacy. Always a liminal experience to tap into the ours’s and me’s that come from poetry written on & with our whenua.

[Leah Dodd · Rating 5 out of 5]

🤌

[Svetlana Sterlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘What does it mean to be gone? Where do you go to?’

STACEY UR A STAR 🌟 a powerful poetic force!! so moving, so potent, so familiar in its balance of finery and groundedness 🥹