Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 10h

‘Ideas are like fish.’ 🐠

David Atkinson @davidatkinsonpoet.bsky.social · 3d

I am going to need a bigger boat...

#poetry
#amwriting
#quoteoftheday

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 22h

‘it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.’ 🌊

Caroleeena @caroleeena.bsky.social · 2d

Today's Poem:

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 3d

‘the secret beauty
of the word ‘No’’ ☝🏽

archive-yvonnezlam.bsky.social @archive-yvonnezlam.bsky.social · Mar 31

My last early post for Poetry Month, which starts tomorrow. “After Pilates” by Elizabeth Smither

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 3d

‘there’s music there, behind her serious eyes.’ 🎶

𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕜 𝔸𝕟𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕪 𝕆𝕨𝕖𝕟 @markantonyowen.com · Jun 25

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

Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 3d

‘and that’s enuf to eat’ 🙌🏽

Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 6d

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

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 3d

‘That is what I keep coming back to: our lives and our futures are interdependent.’
☝🏽☝🏽☝🏽

E-Tangata @etangata.bsky.social · 4d

“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

Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 3d

‘May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.’ ☝🏽

Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · 4d

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.

Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 5d

‘Winter unbundles a sack of storms’ 💨

Jennifer Ashton @jenashton.bsky.social · Aug 22

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”.

Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 5d

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
‘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

Swapna Haddow @swapnahaddow.bsky.social · 13d

I got on my soapbox to talk about the serious business of funny books:

www.scholastic.co.uk/blog/The-Ser...

The Serious Business of Funny Books

"Funny books have the power to hook young readers, particularly reluctant readers, because of the joy they bring." - Swapna Haddow, author of _The Terrible Trio: The (Not So) Superheroes_

www.scholastic.co.uk

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 6d

‘And a fountain empties itself into the grass.’ 💦

Cathy Brown @cathybrown746.bsky.social · 7d

Another great one gone. RIP Brian Patten.

A picture of the poem Sometimes It Happens

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 6d

‘A dead person passes through me’ ⚡️

phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 26d

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.

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 7d

‘you are
most alive among those still
in sight’ ❤️

poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 12d

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

Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 7d

‘it is animal’ ❤️

Forgotten Poets @forgottenpoets.bsky.social · Nov 15

Hone Tuwhare #poetry #poems #haiku #micropoetry #poetrycommunity #ToituTeTiriti #Aotearoa

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 8d

‘I want the mercy of being unseen
without being unloved.’ 🫥

Forgotten Poets @forgottenpoets.bsky.social · 12d

.
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.

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 10d

‘My mother
wears her wrinkles
the way an ocean
wears a wave.’ 🌊

Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 11d

From Rudy Francisco's book, Helium.

Get it here: bit.ly/rfhelium

#poem #books #writing

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 11d

If only I was in ChCh! 🤩

Tania Roxborogh @taniaroxborogh.bsky.social · 11d

I'm giving my reckons this afternoon at Upper Riccarton Lib at 2pm.

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 12d

☝🏽☝🏽☝🏽

E-Tangata @etangata.bsky.social · 18d

“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

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 12d

A great loss. 😔

❤️ her kōrero:

‘The problem, now as then, is that when we know only one culture and one language we live in that world, like fish live in water, taking it for granted that this is the way that things are, and this is the way things ought to be’☝🏽

E-Tangata @etangata.bsky.social · 18d

We're saddened by the passing of Dame Joan Metge this week, at the age of 95. In 2015, we had the privilege of sitting down with Joan to discuss her remarkable journey helping shape how New Zealand talks about race relations. Our condolences to Joan's whānau and the many lives she touched.

Joan Metge: On Māori and Pākehā | E-Tangata

A path prompted by small town racism

e-tangata.co.nz

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Reposted by Feana Tu’akoi

Christchurch City Libraries Ngā Kete Wānanga o Ōtautahi @christchurchlib.bsky.social · 13d

Pics from last night's Ngaio Marsh Awards and Murderous Mystery with the Court Jesters. www.flickr.com/photos/chris...
#WORDChch #YeahNoir #Pukapuka ^DR
Check out our lists of Ngaio Marsh Awards winners & finalists: my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/ngaio-marsh-...

Ngaio Marsh Awards 2025

The Ngaio Marsh Awards and The Murderous Mystery. Thursday 25 September 2025. Tautoru / TSB Space, Tūranga. Court Jesters solved a thrillng murder case, then the 15th annual Ngaio Marsh Awards to...

www.flickr.com

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 12d

🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽

Nikki Hessell @nikkihessell.bsky.social · 13d

The best thing you'll see all day 😍
thespinoff.co.nz/pop-culture/...

Scotty Morrison’s greatest Te Karere sign-offs, ranked

Just when you think the news is over, the magic begins.

thespinoff.co.nz

Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 15d

‘A flurry of dancing lace’ ❄️

Dave Ashley @daveashleypoet.bsky.social · 15d

#BlueSkyRelay #frost #winter #FreeVerse #Poem

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 16d

‘To be so lost
in this radiant wilderness.’ 🍃

Rick Larios @ricklarios.bsky.social · Nov 16

Poem by Gregory Orr posted on a signboard near where we live in Brooklyn.

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 16d

‘a reckoning is rumored on the wind.’ 🍃

Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 17d

Joseph Payne Brennan

THE CLOSER LIGHT

Autumn enters like a blade of ice;
the extraneous ebbs away, the marginal dims.

I no longer look through leaves; naked twigs
etch black designs; leaves lie underfoot.

A cold and bitter clarity comes down the sky;
it spreads with the day, chill, comfortless.

All things are seen in closer light;
amorphous concepts shrink to solid cores.

At certain hours, the day seems savage;
a reckoning is rumored on the wind.

In this sudden distance, merciless light,
Time itself is shorn of true dimensions.

Voices of the dead, subdued but clear,
rise up from earth and murmur in my ear.

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 17d

‘I saw my reflection and it startled me’ 😳

Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 17d

happy #smallpoemsunday! 💜

feel free to participate by posting small poems you wrote, +/or small poems you love by somebody else :)

here are two by Montana James Thomas, from Concerning the Dinner~

Big

I grew too strong,
and fast,
like a chicken breast shrinks in the oven,
like people die
gloriously
for their little country
that sits on God’s beautiful earth.
I saw my reflection and it startled me,
like a fallen leaf
at the nose of a dog.

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Feana Tu’akoi @feanatuakoi.bsky.social · 18d

‘Wild strawberries and cream in the morning.’ 🍓

Adrian Dallas Frandle @adrianf.bsky.social · 26d

Charles Simic

CLOUDS GATHERING
It seemed the kind of life we wanted.
Wild strawberries and cream in the morning.
Sunlight in every room.
The two of us walking by the sea naked.
Some evenings, however, we found ourselves Unsure of what comes next.
Like tragic actors in a theater on fire, With birds circling over our heads, The dark pines strangely still,
Each rock we stepped on bloodied by the sunset.
We were back on our terrace sipping wine.
Why always this hint of an unhappy ending?
Clouds of almost human appearance
Gathering on the horizon, but the rest lovely With the air so mild and the sea untroubled.
The night suddenly upon us, a starless night.
You lighting a candle, carrying it naked Into our bedroom and blowing it out quickly.
The dark pines and grasses strangely still.

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