Taunoa Kohere was born in Hastings, the grandson of the famous Māori writer and editor Reweti Kohere. He was educated at East Cape Primary School and Hastings Boys’ High School. He began a B.A. majoring in English at Victoria University and died in his final year of the B.A. He began writing poetry as a school boy; his work was published in the Hawkes Bay newspaper Herald Tribune and later in Argot and other student publications. Kohere was an active writer and his brother Rei recalls him writing all the time, even while working on the farm. James Bertram described Kohere as "one of his most gifted students, someone likely to have become a writer of distinction." He wrote poetry and humorous material and at the time of his death had a great quantity of unpublished material in his possession.
Biographical sources
- Correspondence from Rarawa Kohere on 22 Apr. 1998.
- Phone conversation with Rei Kohere, 12 July 1998.
- Into the World of Light: An Anthology of Māori Writing. Ed. Witi Ihimaera and D. S. Long. Auckland, N.Z.: Heinemann, 1982. 213.
Poetry
- "Selections From A Diary." Into the World of Light: An Anthology of Māori Writing. Ed. Witi Ihimaera and D. S. Long. Auckland, N.Z.: Heinemann, 1982. 212-213.
- A poem with evocations of the solitary and terminal state of a writer looking to a future age.