“iMāori”, by Sam Cruickshank is a poem
about modern Māori writers revitalizing their cultural roots by
using iMāori. They are making their way of living,
thinking and talking public using niu media, similarly their poetry is fed by
these innovative communication tools.
The poem's title “iMāori”, which can be related to the
innovative iphone displays modern creativity and progress. iMāori’s interactive functions
enable Māori writers to create a special connection to “fellow
poets” worldwide and thus create a new way of mobility. Sam Cruickshank
compares iMāori to a “star waka satellite ship”, a symbol
for ancient voyagers and adventurers. Whereas the writer’s forefathers crossed
oceans with their waka, their sons and daughters now surf the web to connect to
new people, write emails or use messengers for example via facebook. Skype and
telephone calls function as networks of "tukutuku DNA" and allow
travellers to sustain links with their homeland, family and cultural
roots. Often spread all over the world, literature offers a
possibility for Māori writers and readers to find out who they are. Modern communication
tools simplify and speed up this process. iMāori offers living Māori styles and identify with it to people
spread all over the world, not only those living in a Maori community. Through
the web, for example iTunes and You Tube music and dances are made accessible
to everyone.
By living the “dream of Māori styles” the narrator creates another connection. The speaking voice is
chaining the past to the present through the stories of his ancestors, “tupuna
whaea”. With iMāori a photo gallery can always be
carried around, preserving the memories of the forefather’s stories. Placed in the middle of the poem, the stories from the past seem to be the
essence of connecting poetry. The Māori poet
speaks proudly of his Nanny Ruihi, who fought for the survival of Māori culture at a time when the world was dominated by innovations as well. The
influence of western innovation on the Aotearoan
culture was big back then. However, as the technical and digital divide between
different parts of the world have lessened; Māori culture is as now able to
share their own art. The narrator uses “skillful Selina Marsh slapstick
fashion” to describe the mediation of bicultural reality in “I Love Lucy”. This emphasizes the
importance of artists from Pacific descent to whom the media and public
attention are focused. Those who choose
to let the world have a piece of them by choice, help to create a new picture
for others as well as for themselves.
The proud sentence “she would have rocked it for sure”, expresses Pacific
writers new self-consciousness. This emerged particularly from the support of
their communities supporting globalized Māori writers. His family plays a big role for the narrator, as the
“whakapaka” is pictured as the “blood of a poet’s destiny”. iMāori also bring the “whānau’s reo”.
Reconnecting with their vernacular tongue and using it does not only fill poets
with pride, it is an important part of culture that is in danger of becoming
extinct. Online Māori dictionaries can help defending their language and make it accessible for
everyone. Using the “crest of this millennium”, thus the communication tools
and platforms for their purpose of sharing their stories, it can be a weapon of
defending their culture and preserving their language. Proudly the voice in “iMāori” announces “we don’t sit in literary darkness anymore, we are inc
savvy”. It is through the community, through the incorporation (“inc”), through
the contribution of each individual voice to a forum (maybe on the internet,
maybe through a book as Mauri Ola)
that “inc savvy” is created.
Sam Cruickshank’s final words “if we yearn for it, we should reach for it,
envisage it, write it” express that through the community’s power everything
can be reached. Oral words becoming “written down” words preserve the journeys
of the past and present for the future and thus possibilities to find ones
identity “becoming flesh”. Considering the new gained mobility more journeys
are ahead and offer a bright future.
