Arts
Goddess of poetry
by Siobhan Harvey
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Even if the show doesn’t materialise, Avia’s latest role in life – motherhood – will be keeping her busy for the foreseeable future. Her daughter, Sepela, to whom Bloodclot is dedicated, is 18 months old. “It’s a cliché perhaps, but having Sepela has been the hugest experience of my life. Before she was born, I had no idea that being a mother would affect every part of my life. Even my writing has changed. Some of the poems about pregnancy and babies which appear in Bloodclot are a little bit dark, I have to say.”
And Avia’s career – has parenthood altered that? “As a single mother, it’s been difficult for me to keep up with my work. If I’m asked to attend a literary festival, I need to take Sepela along. But that’s been fun, too. I often look at my daughter and think, ‘Oh, what a wonderful life you have.’ I wish when I was growing up I’d been taken to poetry festivals; I couldn’t think of anything more wonderful.”
That Avia didn’t grow up attending book festivals, but rather was raised in Aranui is a fact that’s caused her to have “a very ambivalent relationship with Christchurch, so much so I wanted to escape from there as quickly as I could”.
Escape she did, spending most of her 20s travelling the world with “no plans at all to ever return to Christchurch – ever, ever, ever”! Nowadays, though, being a Cantabrian is a part of Avia to which she’s reconciled. “I returned to Christ-church two years ago. Because my family are here, I came back to have my baby, and, at the time, that was the only reason I came. But since coming home, I’ve been surprised that I’ve managed to continue to have a career here and raise my child.
“Yes, I don’t do the amount of literary festivals, school visits and theatre performances I would if I lived in Wellington or Auckland, but in its way, Christchurch has been good to me. Ever since I had Sepela, for instance, I’ve performed at least once a month. I think that’s a credit to the vibrant poetry and theatre scenes we have here now.”
These days, Avia is so comfortable with acknowledging her Christchurch roots she launched Bloodclot at the city’s IVA Pacific Arts Festival last week, where she was one of the headline acts.
Not that being a leading light of the Pacific arts community always sits easily with her. As with Avia’s status as a poet, performer and Cantabrian, her standing as a leading voice in contemporary Pacific Island theatre and literature is a facet of her character she’s constantly assessing.
“I was lucky. I started performing at a time when the Pacific Island arts scene took off. But that’s also meant that I’m often seen as having a particular image – Samoan, female, afa kasi [half-caste], speaking my mind, breaking taboos. And the thing with images is that they’re constraining; they never let you be seen as a person. In the past, it did my head in, but nowadays I don’t let it affect me too much.”
Indeed, talk to Avia about her future and you find she’s laid-back enough to hope that how she’ll be defined in years to come is similar to how she has been defined so far. “People tell me I should write a novel. Publishers want novels; they sell more. But writing a novel means spending years at your writing desk. I’m a very sociable person, and the thought of locking myself away for that long scares me. So, given that the gods have been very kind to me as an actress and poet so far, all I ask of the future is that I’ll always write and always perform. If I do these two things until I die, I’ll be a very happy woman indeed.”
BLOODCLOT, by Tusiata Avia (VUP, $25) is released on
February 20.
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