about me
My Story
Where do I begin?
In so many ways every poem is a fully-formed fragment of my story.
I was born in Rotorua in Aotearoa, New Zealand to a Pālangi Mum, Lynda, and a Tongan Dad, Maka. In many ways they are polar opposites and one of my super-powers has been to walk the spectrum between them: different cultures, classes, ways of being and doing… it’s hard to believe that my Mum and Dad were ever married they are so different, and yet, it happened. One of my first poems published in my high school year-book was about their marriage and contained the lines: “This I can remember, but cannot imagine.”
“He was Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga
the demigod living a legend
in the post-oil-industrial crisis of the ‘70s
at the age of eighteen
he hopped on the back of a rainbow
caught the tail of the fourth wind
and dropped into the umbilicus
of Aotearoa
Rotorua
amongst hissing geysers…
she was twenty times removed from Sina
the eel queen, the slick of her long dark locks
was the only part of her white body to remember this
they had met beofre
it had worked out that time
taupou and demigod
they had loved
each other, perfectly
like a myth, like a legend
like a story with a good ending
[Creation Myth, A Well Written Body]
I continue to write about my family, my friends, the politics of relationships and people I admire. It is not rare for me to write odes to people I adore and respect. Honouring lives through poetry is something that I do often. As the critic Lana Lopesi writes of Goddess Muscle:
“The poems written for others constitute a stunning thread of Goddess Muscle – people like Teresia Teaiwa, Epeli Hauʻofa, Jim Viviaere, Albert Wendt, her son Maka Toa and a poem commissioned by her Nana offer beautiful tributes to the people in and around her life and poetry.”
Lani Lopesi, The Wednesday Review, New Zealand Academy of Literature
Poetry has always been a way of communicating the difficult. It has always been something that I have taken great delight and comfort from. I still remember the first poem I ever wrote. I was eight. It went like this:
“A seed needs an embryo,
otherwise it will not grow.
You must think it very clever,
but it also depends on the weather.”
I remember the satisfaction in the rhyme and rhythm. I rarely rhyme these days, but I bounce similar sounds together often and still take satisfaction from it.
I won a school poetry competition at Intermediate and then went on to write poetry at high school, particularly after I discovered Alice Walker in our school library. I was encouraged by teachers to write and was considered to be very good at ‘English’ which was, by far, my favourite subject. I was always a big reader - especially of fairytales - and that probably helped my writing develop.
In high school three things happened that influenced my life forever and that still play out in my poetry. Firstly, I went to school in Tonga and lived there for six months. I was forever changed after that experience. A distant father-land became home. Even though I was often rendered a ‘Pālangī… I got used to the everyday life there, became a beloved place to me.
“You will turn up to a funeral
wearing the wrong colour
sit in the wrong place at church
eat something on the road
while you are working…
after many years
moving wounded
between the back-slap of two worlds
you will decide there is nothing to do
but wear home on your back
crawl land, swim sea
amphibious genealogy
swim past the lizards
walk by the fish
shell thicker than water”
Fonu, A Well Written Body
The second thing that had a huge influence on my life was that I was conscientised by my Te Reo Māori teacher, Papa Sean. As one of his tauira, I learned about the true history of Aotearoa and it gave me a shock. I became politicised about what had happened to the tangata whenua of Aotearoa at a relatively young age. In my teens, I had a critical analysis of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and witnessed first-hand the power of language-reclamation and indigenous renaissance. All of these issues continue to influence my poetry and have also guided my professional research career and the creation of Mana Moana.
My poetry continues to contain elements of political protest and activism is an important part of who I am. I find that poetry can condense complicated issues into eloquent soundbites. What happened at Ihumatao, for example, moved me to write a very long poem that was performed on the whenua and then turned into a video by those leading the protest.
Poetry has always been a way of communicating the difficult. It has always been something that I have taken great delight and comfort from. I still remember the first poem I ever wrote. I was eight. It went like this:
“A seed needs an embryo,
otherwise it will not grow.
You must think it very clever,
but it also depends on the weather.”
I remember the satisfaction in the rhyme and rhythm. I rarely rhyme these days, but I bounce similar sounds together often and still take satisfaction from it.
I won a school poetry competition at Intermediate and then went on to write poetry at high school, particularly after I discovered Alice Walker in our school library. I was encouraged by teachers to write and was considered to be very good at ‘English’ which was, by far, my favourite subject. I was always a big reader - especially of fairytales - and that probably helped my writing develop.
In high school three things happened that influenced my life forever and that still play out in my poetry. Firstly, I went to school in Tonga and lived there for six months. I was forever changed after that experience. A distant father-land became home. Even though I was often rendered a ‘Pālangī… I got used to the everyday life there, became close to my overseas family and understood more about the culture. As unfamiliar as it initially felt to me, it became a beloved second home. I returned and was a teacher at Halafo’ou National Form Seven School in 1996.
“this is the twist
you weren’t expecting
fleeing tall glass cities
in search of fonua
only to find yourself
foreign
you will turn up to a funeral
wearing the wrong colour
sit in the wrong place at church
eat something on the road
while you are working…
after many years
moving wounded
between the back-slap of two worlds
you will decide there is nothing to do
but wear home on your back
crawl land, swim sea
amphibious genealogy
swim past the lizards
walk by the fish
shell thicker than water”
Fonu, A Well Written Body
The next thing that had a huge influence on my life was that I was conscientised by my Te Reo Māori teacher. I learned about the true history of Aotearoa and it gave me a shock. I became politicised about what had happened to the tangata whenua of Aotearoa, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and witnessed first-hand the indigenous renaissance. As an activist, all of this continues to influence my work.
“Karlo engages with light and dark, fragility and strength, relationships, family, sisterhoods, writing mentors, life mentors, political issues. Her words meet the line, create the lines like a movement of water, lap lapping in your ear, across your skin, with ebb and tide, the words in debt to water fluency as they flow gentle and honeyed, or hit sands, rocks, obstacles. Such sweet flowing lyrical currents. Always audible, always mesmerising. This is poetic craft at its most agile.”
Paula Green,
New Zealand Poetry Shelf