Shortlisted for the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards; MARY AND PETER BIGGS AWARD FOR POETRY
Click here to visit the Ockham NZ Book Awards 2023 Shortlist
A first book of poetry from acclaimed Māori writer and scholar Alice Te Punga Somerville.
'Biting, cheeky, defiant, sage - Alice's words speak out against injustice, speak up for the overlooked and sidelined, and speak softly for the tamariki. Always Italicise is a collection to carry closely.' Aroha Harris
Alice Te Punga Somerville (Te Ati Awa, Taranaki) is a scholar, poet and irredentist. She researches and teaches Māori, Pacific and Indigenous texts in order to centre Indigenous expansiveness and de-centre colonialism. Alice is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia.
She studied at the University of Auckland, earned a PhD at Cornell University, is a Fulbright scholar and Marsden recipient and has held academic appointments in New Zealand, Canada, Hawai'i and Australia. Her first book Once Were Pacific: Māori Connections to Oceania (University of Minnesota Press, 2012) won Best First Book from the Native American & Indigenous Studies Association. Her most recent book is Two Hundred and Fifty Ways to Start an Essay about Captain Cook (BWB, 2020).
Poetry
Paperback
Alice Te Punga Somerville
88 pages
H: 215mm W: 160mm Spine: 7mm