Evelyn Patuawa-Nathan

Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Hau, Ngāti Maniapoto

1933 -

Evelyn Patuawa was born near Dargaville and was educated at Maropiu in the Kaihu valley. She began working at the age of twelve in factories, hotels and hospitals. She has lived in Europe and Asia and has worked as a teacher. She has tutored long-term women prisoners in prisons in Sydney. Evelyn has written a historical novel which Collins in London was interested in publishing; however, it got lost in the mail. She was interested in establishing a Māori writers’ society with Harry Dansey and Hone Tuwhare in the years prior to the Māori Writers and Artists’ Society. She lives in Sydney and teachers at a private girls’ school in East Sydney. She has another poetry collection awaiting publication.

Biographical sources

  • Patuawa-Nathan, Evelyn. Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana Publications, 1979.
  • McNaughton, Trudie. "Biographical Notes and Selected Bibliography." Countless Signs: The New Zealand Landscape in Literature. Comp. Trudie McNaughton. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed Methuen, 1986. 377.
  • Te Ao Mārama: Contemporary Māori Writing. Comp. and ed. Witi Ihimaera. Contributing ed. Haare Williams, Irihapeti Ramsden and D. S. Long. Vol. 5: Te Torino: The Spiral. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed, 1996. 55.

    Non-fiction

  • "Albert Namatjira: Australian Aboriginal Painter." Te Ao Hou 31 (1960): 24-29.
  • Patuawa-Nathan writes a descriptive and moving account of the rise of an Aboriginal art movement in Central Australia under the leadership of Arunta Chief Albert Namatjira. She traces the movement’s origins from an exhibition of paintings by Rex Battarbee and John A Gardner which Namatjira attended at Hermannsbury Lutheran Mission Station, Alice Springs in 1934. Following this exhibition, Namatjira worked for Battarbee on his landscape excursions and ultimately received painting lessons from Battarbee. From here Patuaua writes ‘his potentiality was recognised and he forged ahead, quickly mastering the difficult art of the water colour’. Patuaua writes of the unique features of Namatjira’s art and that of the other Arunta artists who emerged after this time. She discusses the critical reception their work received and touches on the brutal way Namatjira was treated in the last year of his life. `

    • Poetry

  • "Summer in the Kaihu Valley." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 1.
  • In this poem the speaker returns to the place of her birth and her ‘jaded senses’ are renewed by the landscape, river and the summer ‘whispering new secrets / halting the hours/so [the speaker]may know again/this hesitant valley of [her] birth.’
  • "Distant Village." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 2.
  • In this poem the ‘distant village’, ‘broad hills’, ‘northern valleys’, ‘swampland bogs’ and ‘wind-swept inlets’ of Hokianga are permeated with life and ministering qualities that reach across the Tasman to the speaker who feels devoid of life.
  • "Old Man And His Dog." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 3-5.
  • This poem written in a simple narrative style tells the tale of a simple but effective form of subversion of government bureaucracy through the use of a dog.
  • "Ngaruawahia." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 6.
  • A detailed and impressionistic description of the landscape around Ngaruawahia.
  • "My Child." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 7.
  • A short reflection on the imminent waking of the speaker’s child ‘nestled in sleep’ but any moment about ‘to negotiate/terms for day break.’
  • "Omamari." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 9. Rpt. in Countless Signs: The New Zealand Landscape in Literature. Comp.Trudie McNaughton. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed Methuen, 1986. 27.
  • The speaker ponders on aspects of the seascape at Omamari that stir her sense of history and tribal origins.
  • "The Kaihu." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 10. Rpt. in Countless Signs: The New Zealand Landscape in Literature. Comp.Trudie McNaughton. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed Methuen, 1986. 100.
  • The speaker reflects on the Kaihu River meandering through ‘cow chewing pastures’ and recalls her childhood memories playing along its banks, trapping eels while mothers ‘pounded / clothes on boulders / and sat about / gossiping.’
  • "In The Beginning." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 11-12. Rpt. in Te Ao Mārama: Contemporary Māori Writing. Comp. and ed. Witi Ihimaera. Contributing ed. Haare Williams, Irihapeti Ramsden and D. S. Long. Vol. 5: Te Torino: The Spiral. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed, 1996. 55-56.
  • The tale of Manu te Waaka who moved to Kings Cross, became addicted to drugs, changed his gender, and worked as Louise Santos in a night club before drugs and depression finally took their grim toll on his life. Underlying this story is the plight of the urbanised Māori, alienated from their people and land. Manu te Waaka was beset by ‘the worries / of family ties left behind’ and while he suffered homesickness, this was superseded by the fear of humiliation and intolerance if he returned home to Aotearoa.
  • "Tasman Sea." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 13.
  • In this short poem the speaker contemplates those forces ‘[d]elaying the exiles’ return.’
  • "The House." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 14.
  • A reflection on returning to a house once inhabited by the speaker.
  • "Childhood." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 15.
  • The speaker recalls the carefree years of childhood that were interrupted and altered by the ravages of war.
  • "It’s Over." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 16.
  • In sparse, economic language with evocations of aggression this poem signals the end of a relationship.
  • "A Northern Harbour." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 17.
  • A description of a wet evening along the Hokianga Harbour with the lights of Rawene in the distance.
  • "Burial Place." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 18.
  • The speaker writes of visiting the tribal urupa at Maitahi in search ‘of family foot-prints.’
  • "On The Last Train Home." Mana [19??]. Rpt. as "Aboriginal On The Last Train Home." in Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 19. Rpt. in Te Ao Mārama: Contemporary Māori Writing. Comp. and ed. Witi Ihimaera. Contributing ed. Haare Williams, Irihapeti Ramsden and D. S. Long. Vol. 5: Te Torino: The Spiral. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed, 1996. 56-57.
  • A satiric poem in which the aborigine funded by the government to return to his home contemplates that in another ten years of funding ‘they would have paid him a fair price/ for New South Wales.’
  • "Almost a Flower." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 20.
  • The speaker reflects on the sensual fragrant qualities of a lover.
  • "Day." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 22.
  • The poet personifies the times of the day and portrays dawn arriving and ‘[s]tartling day half dressed / on the river bank.’
  • "Education Week." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 23.
  • A poignant poem of a teacher taking her class to visit the local jail during education week and her class of aboriginal boys and girls discovering the names of their cousins, brothers and fathers amongst the graffiti on the prison walls. The irony of an education week attempting to teach children what they already know.
  • "Victoria Street." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 24.
  • The speaker reflects on the former inhabitants of a deserted and abandoned street and ponders on why they had to go.
  • "Dream." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 25.
  • The speaker hovers between the world of dreams and reality and prefers to remain under ‘the brave mantle of goose fathers. / Buried in [the speaker’s] disguise’.
  • "Opening Doors." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 26.
  • The speaker contemplates on her preparation, internal and external, to enable her to meet and face the outside world.
  • "Taraire Berries." Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979. 27.
  • This poem focuses on the icons of a home country that a mother conveys on to her son who, in turn, incorporates them into his own focus of search and discovery.
  • Opening Doors: A Collection of Poems. Suva, Fiji: Mana, 1979.
  • A collection of twenty-four poems in which Patuawa-Nathan reminisces about her childhood origins and haunts around the Kaihu Valley, north of Dargaville. She explores themes of exile from one’s home country and tribal area, and a longing to return and discover signs of belonging. She also includes poems with a political voice protesting against bureaucratic injustices against the Māori and the Australian aborigine.
  • "Waikato Lament." ibid. 8. Rpt. in Countless Signs: The New Zealand Landscape in Literature. Comp. Trudie McNaughton. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed Methuen, 1986. 343.
  • The poet, using imagery of vegetation slowing growing over but not totally covering old Māori landmarks, asserts that the injustices inflicted on Māori cannot be hidden or covered over - the ‘spirits of Taupiri/raise keening voices / anthem of injustice/echoing down / through the night.’
  • "Tohunga." ibid. 21. Rpt. in Te Ao Mārama: Contemporary Māori Writing. Comp. and ed. Witi Ihimaera. Contributing ed. Haare Williams, Irihapeti Ramsden and D. S. Long. Vol. 5: Te Torino: The Spiral. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed, 1996. 57.
  • A poem encapsulating the words and work of a tohunga as he offers up songs of protection over a new meeting house.

    Other

  • Erai, Michelle, Fuli, Everdina, Irwin, Kathie and Wilcox, Lenaire. Māori Women: An Annotated Bibliography. [Wellington, N.Z.]: Michelle Erai, Everdina Fuli, Kathie Irwin and Lenaire Wilcox, 1991. 24.
  • McNaughton, Trudie. "Biographical Notes and Selected Bibliography." Countless Signs: The New Zealand Landscape in Literature. Comp. Trudie McNaughton. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed Methuen, 1986. 377.