When the utu came

Abstract

when the utu came Vaughan Rapatahana (bio) until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter —Chinua Achebe when the utu cameit was hypnogogic,like those gaudy paintballs behind your eyes,when you rub too hard. when the utu came,you had earned it.merely by remaining causticawake & somewhat aware. your pen had done the dirty work:it was up to readersto scan intenseyour sensate words, to flit the messageon to designated otherssimply by flicking the pagein their directions. when the utu camenight-calling in itsopen-mouthed finger-gibethey knew, as they had always known, they would wake as pariah,pale castrato fingers snatchingat the jaunty sandsof shores no longer stolen— if they ever woke at all. [End Page 265] Vaughan Rapatahana Vaughan Rapatahana is a New Zealand writer and reviewer of Māori ancestry. In addition to poetry and prose fiction (examples of both appearing in this issue), Vaughan publishes widely in both Māori and English, in genres including academic articles, educational material, philosophy, and language critiques. In 2009, he was a semifinalist for the Proverse Prize and in 2013 a finalist for the Erbacce Prize for Poetry. In 2016, he won the Proverse Poetry Prize. He commutes between Hong Kong SAR, Philippines, and Aotearoa New Zealand, and his work has been translated into Bahasa Malaysia, Italian, French, and Mandarin. Footnotes Note: utu—Māori, meaning 'reparation, recompense, revenge' Copyright © 2021 Wayne State University Press