Barnie Pikari was born in Ohakune and was educated at Ohakune Primary School. He has worked as a manual worker, a shearer and spent 18 years working for the Wellington, N.Z. City Council as a rubbish collector. In the late 1970s he began to get involved in voluntary community work and local politics in Porirua. Pikari discovered that community social work was his forte and spent five years working in the Children and Young Persons Department of the Department of Social Welfare. Pikari is currently a social worker at the Māori Mental Health Services in Porirua. He wrote a series of articles and poetry for the Porirua community newspaper Te Awa Iti focusing on issues of the day from his own personal experiences. The newspaper was geared to the largely Polynesian-Māori population of Porirua and the articles were written for this audience. For the last ten years he has been writing a book about his work as a shearer which is unpublished. In his work as a social worker his writing is more confined to inhouse reports, court reports and assessments.
Biographical sources
- Phone conversation with Barnie Pikari, 27 Aug. 1998.
- He Whakaaro Ke: A Collection Of Non-Fiction Articles Published In A Collaborative Effort. Vern Winitana, Angela McGregor, Harry Walker and Barnie Pikari. Illust. Robyn Kahukiwa. Wellington, N.Z.: Print Express, [198?].
Non-fiction
- He Whakaaro Ke: A Collection Of Non-Fiction Articles Published In A Collaborative Effort. Vern Winitana, Angela McGregor, Harry Walker and Barnie Pikari. Illust. Robyn Kahukiwa. Wellington, N.Z.: Print Express, [198?].
- A collection of non-fiction articles published in a collaborative effort by four Māori writers and an artist. The publication is a compilation of articles published in the Porirua Community Newspaper, Te Awa-iti. The authors state: ‘As a group we believe that when we agreed upon this collective project to collate our work into this book our ideals were based solely on the chance to write and paint in part about the Māori experience.’
Poetry
- "Tama Tu Ora Is My Proud Name." He Whakaaro Ke: A Collection Of Non-Fiction Articles Published In A Collaborative Effort. Vern Winitana, Angela McGregor, Harry Walker and Barnie Pikari. Illust. Robyn Kahukiwa. Wellington, N.Z.: Print Express, [198?]. n. pag.
- Written embodying the anger of that era.
- "The city my identity." He Whakaaro Ke: A Collection Of Non-Fiction Articles Published In A Collaborative Effort. Vern Winitana, Angela McGregor, Harry Walker and Barnie Pikari. Illust. Robyn Kahukiwa. Wellington, N.Z.: Print Express, [198?]. n. pag.
- About street kids.
Reviews
He Whakaaro Ke: A Collection Of Non-Fiction Articles Published In A Collaborative Effort.
- Tu Tangata 27 (1985): 46.