Dear Mother Basillise

Kia ora!

My name is Hinemoana Baker, and on my Dad's side I'm from Ng?ti Toa, Ng?ti Raukawa, Ng?i Tahu, Te ?ti Awa and P?keh? descent. My marae are Kuku marae in ?hau, and ?t?kou down on the peninsula where the albatross nest. My mum's ancestors are from Bavaria and England.

For the last year I have been the Creative New Zealand Victoria University Writer in Residence in Wellington. This position has allowed me to begin writing a new kind of project - for me anyway (I'm known more as a poet). I've written 40,000 words of a new book, currently called 'Dear Mother Basillise'.

This book tells two haunting family stories: my father's time spent as a child in a Catholic orphanage in Nelson, and alongside that, my own story of trying to become a parent and experiencing infertility. On a wider level the book is about whakapapa, genealogy and family. It's about losing a parent, about what it really means to be a parent, what it means to lose the opportunity to do that. It's about me connecting with my father through our shared experiences of grief.

It's been an amazing year. Wakeful nights staying at the orphanage where Dad was as a kid; tearful interviews with elderly men who were children there; crying with laughter sharing stories with other women who, like me, have spent years trying to conceive babies of their own. It's been a year of stories: tales of kids punished, kids forced to bury their toys in wet cement. Kids so hungry they ate the millet paste they were supposed to feed to the ducks.

I've cried on photos of kingfishers and syringes, laid on the graves of nuns and smelled the dusty door of a priest's mausoleum. I've wondered at memories of dead horses shot by children, of children who never existed, and babies who nearly did. I've counted the days of my inescapable menstrual cycle, because I can't stop doing that, though I've long since stopped trying to get pregnant. I've stayed at a convent where now the only nun is made of concrete. I've marvelled at the heiroglyphics of fertility charts I filled out for years on end.

Many friends, wh?nau and funding organisations have supported me, and with their help, I've produced and published three books of poetry and four CDs, and I've edited and contributed to many more. I've travelled all around New Zealand and to Indonesia, Australia, Fiji, Europe and the US to read, perform and write. I have been incredibly fortunate in my creative life.

This article from the Nelson Evening Mail gives a bit more detail about this current project. 

My website gives some background about me and my work so far.

I've never felt such a drive to continue working full time in order to complete a creative project. Perhaps because of the subject matter, and the age of my father, the momentum for this book is very powerful. Most books take a couple of years to write, and this one's no exception. I need one more year of writing and researching full time to take my book to the point where I can submit it to my publisher. I'm asking my 'Boosted' supporters to help me with the first six months of that.

I would so appreciate any koha you feel to give, no matter how small. Ahakoa he iti, he pounamu :-)

Mauri ora

x

Hinemoana

(Many thanks to film-maker, editor and archivist Angela Boyd who filmed and edited my 'Boosted' video)