Feana Tu’akoi
@feanatuakoi.bsky.social
720 followers 270 following 250 posts
Writer 2025 Convenor of Judges NZCYA Book Awards 2024 University of Otago CoE Creative NZ Children’s Writer in Residence https://www.feanatuakoi.com/
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feanatuakoi.bsky.social
Final session of the Storylines NZ Waikato Tour, with the fab new Te Awhi Rito Reading Ambassador, Kate Di Goldi. Best end to the best week! 🤩
❤️🇳🇿📚
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart’ 💫
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘May I never not be frisky,’
🍃
litbowl.bsky.social
From Mary Oliver's book, Devotions: bit.ly/devotionsLB

#poem #books #writing
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘Your job is not
to kill the bird with the stone.’ 🦅
mollyboom.bsky.social
HELLO, DARLING! Here working out the big questions. 🤩🥰
There is a bird and a stone in your body. Your job is not to kill the bird with a stone.

Victoria Chang
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘One smile of light across the empty face,’ 🌼
catsbearsandme.bsky.social
#Poetry
#Poem
#BlueskyPoetry
#DylanThomas

In The Beginning by Dylan Thomas
(Part 1 of 2)
In the beginning was the three-pointed star,
One smile of light across the empty face,
One bough of bone across the rooting air,
The substance forked that marrowed the first sun,
And, burning ciphers on the round of space,
Heaven and hell mixed as they spun.

In the beginning was the pale signature,
Three-syllabled and starry as the smile,
And after came the imprints on the water,
Stamp of the minted face upon the moon;
The blood that touched the crosstree and the grail
Touched the first cloud and left a sign.

In the beginning was the mounting fire
That set alight the weathers from a spark,
A three-eyed, red-eyed spark, blunt as a flower,
Life rose and spouted from the rolling seas,
Burst in the roots, pumped from the earth and rock
The secret oils that drive the grass.
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘cloud-sent
maker of plains.’ 💧
forgottenpoets.bsky.social

“Quicker than rain…”
—Hone Tuwhare (Ngāpuhi)

#MāoriPoetry #PoetryAotearoa
Reign Again

Neither juggernaut
man
not crawling thing

can bring
a mountain weeping
to its knees
quicker than rain

that demure leveller
ocean-blessed
cloud-sent
maker of plains.
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘To jump into the caves and find something
singing.’ 🎶
onlypoemsmag.bsky.social
“Any day now I’m going to wake up angry enough to haunt you.”

Regina Avendaño
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘Ideas are like fish.’ 🐠
davidatkinsonpoet.bsky.social
I am going to need a bigger boat...

#poetry
#amwriting
#quoteoftheday
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.’ 🌊
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘the secret beauty
of the word ‘No’’ ☝🏽
archive-yvonnezlam.bsky.social
My last early post for Poetry Month, which starts tomorrow. “After Pilates” by Elizabeth Smither
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘there’s music there, behind her serious eyes.’ 🎶
markantonyowen.com
Another example of poetry beautiful for its own sake yet it goes nowhere by its end (this time, by Fleur Adcock): http://t.co/FWz6kkfNB2
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘and that’s enuf to eat’ 🙌🏽
jntod.bsky.social
On National Poetry Day, the greatest poem I have ever read
A printed poem which reads:

I hav for breakfast Weetabix

I hav for lunch some meat

I have for tea 2 sosajis and thats enuf to eat

Peter Hazel, 5
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘That is what I keep coming back to: our lives and our futures are interdependent.’
☝🏽☝🏽☝🏽
etangata.bsky.social
“For those of us who’ve been pressured to assimilate into Pākehā culture, it’s tempting to think that assimilating into Māori culture is respectful. But this is not what’s being asked of us.” — Mengzhu Fu.
We all have a stake in the future of this place | E-Tangata
“For those of us who’ve been pressured to assimilate into Pākehā culture, it’s tempting to think that assimilating into Māori culture is respectful. But this is not what’s being asked of us.” — Mengzh...
e-tangata.co.nz
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.’ ☝🏽
jay.bsky.team
Friend gave me a John O’Donohue book recently. It’s quite good.

“To Come Home To Yourself”
To Come Home To Yourself 

May all that is unforgiven in you
Be released.

May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.

May all that is unlived in you
Blossom into a future
Graced with love.
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘Winter unbundles a sack of storms’ 💨
jenashton.bsky.social
In honour of National Poetry Day, here’s a gem from James K Baxter, with one of the great opening lines in NZ literature.

#poetry #NZ
The poem Winter by James K Baxter. The opening line is “Winter unbundles a sack of storms above the flat scrub country”.
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
‘Funny books can often be dismissed as fart jokes and silliness but look beneath, and you’ll find that these are stories that cleverly navigate tricky topics and emotions by intertwining the dark with the light.’ @swapnahaddow.bsky.social
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘And a fountain empties itself into the grass.’ 💦
cathybrown746.bsky.social
Another great one gone. RIP Brian Patten.
A picture of the poem Sometimes It Happens
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘A dead person passes through me’ ⚡️
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Another by Jenny George
GRIEF

The apricot tree in my garden
will bear no apricots this year.
A shudder of blossoms
came over it briefly
in early spring,
but then another cold night arrived,
leaving ice in the pail.
By morning, the tree was stripped.

A dead person passes through me: 
something electrical
and white
through my limbs.

Like a sudden impulse
to speak
or to knock someone down.
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘you are
most alive among those still
in sight’ ❤️
poemtoday.bsky.social
Words for a Dead Friend

Some nights, or whenever I meet up with the dead,
facing out in long lines leading out
of me, you are
most alive among those still
in sight: you
cannot be killed
in the living mind looking in

George Quasha

Image courtesy @tomsnarsky.bsky.social
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘it is animal’ ❤️
forgottenpoets.bsky.social
Hone Tuwhare #poetry #poems #haiku #micropoetry #poetrycommunity #ToituTeTiriti #Aotearoa
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘I want the mercy of being unseen
without being unloved.’ 🫥
forgottenpoets.bsky.social
.
From 'Deus Meus' (2025)
—K. Sermonté

#poetry #poem #poems
What I Mean When I Say I'm Tired

I don't mean I want to sleep.
I mean I want to disappear for a while.
To be rain on a stranger's roof.
To be smoke rising from someone else's fire.
I don't want to die.
But I do want to rest in a way
the world has never allowed me.
I don't want comfort.
I want quiet.
I want the mercy of being unseen
without being unloved.
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
‘My mother
wears her wrinkles
the way an ocean
wears a wave.’ 🌊
litbowl.bsky.social
From Rudy Francisco's book, Helium.

Get it here: bit.ly/rfhelium

#poem #books #writing
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
If only I was in ChCh! 🤩
taniaroxborogh.bsky.social
I'm giving my reckons this afternoon at Upper Riccarton Lib at 2pm.
feanatuakoi.bsky.social
☝🏽☝🏽☝🏽
etangata.bsky.social
“We should not underestimate the capacity of our children’s brains, but should be celebrating and supporting all the benefits of their potential bilingual superpowers.” — Linguist Hilary Smith.
Bilingual superpowers | E-Tangata
“We should not underestimate the capacity of our children’s brains, but should be celebrating and supporting all the benefits of their potential bilingual superpowers.” — Linguist Hilary Smith.
e-tangata.co.nz