{"product_id":"black-sugarcane","title":"Black Sugarcane","description":"\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.nzbookawards.nz\/new-zealand-book-awards\/2026-awards\/winners\/\" title=\"Click here to read more\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"\u003ewww.nzbookawards.nz Ockham NZ Book Award Winner 2026\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry Winner\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe judges wrote \"Black Sugarcane is a work of rare linguistic grace and emotional precision, a collection that transforms memory, land, and inheritance into something both intimate and expansive. With a voice that is at once grounded and lyrical, Nafanua Purcell Kersel navigates histories of labour, migration, and identity, distilling them into images that linger long after the page is turned. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlack Sugarcane is a landmark debut collection by Nafanua Purcell Kersel. Restless in form and address, these engaging and generous poems ricochet from light to dark, quiet to loud, calm to violence. We meet a loved twin sister as she dives towards the Sacred Centre, a grandmother who knows everything by heart, a shrugging office clerk, and Nafanua herself, an enigmatic shapeshifter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the heart of Black Sugarcane is a sequence of erasure poems arising from the seminal essay 'In Search of Tagaloa' by Tui Atua Tamasese Ta'isi Efi. From the worlds contained in the text, these poems rise as if inevitable. Another sequence responds to the devastating tsunami that stuck between the Samoan islands of Upolu and Tutuila in September 2009. Within the line, within the word and even the letter, these poems speak to creation and translation, destruction and regeneration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'The poems in Black Sugarcane are laced with panthers and cobras. Nafanua Purcell Kersel yields her machete-pen with ease, humour and aroha, clearing paths, riding waves, carving memory and bending time. Her poetic vision is both minuscule-microscopic and drone-distant, opening space for the va to take shape. She is writing on a branch from the same rakau as Selina Tusitala Marsh and Tusiata Avia.' -Anne-Marie Te Whiu \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'I was blown away by this book. The poems are playful and powerful, fresh and original.' -Airini Beautrais\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa'itea, Falealupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu) is a writer, poet and performer who was born in Samoa and raised in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. Her poetry has been widely published. She has an MA from the IIML and won the 2022 Biggs Family Prize in Poetry for Black Sugarcane. She lives in Te Matau-a-Maui Hawke's Bay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePoetry\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePaperback, 128 pages\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eH: 210mm W: 170mm\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Te Herenga Waka University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46359505305750,"sku":"9781776922222","price":30.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0587\/4978\/0118\/files\/jacket-2026-04-24T085225-779.jpg?v=1776977670","url":"https:\/\/www.tawabooksandpost.co.nz\/products\/black-sugarcane","provider":"Tawa Books \u0026 Post","version":"1.0","type":"link"}