"Always italicise foreign words," a friend of the author was advised. In her first book of poetry, Māori scholar and poet Alice Te Punga Somerville does just that. In wit and anger, sadness and aroha, she reflects on how to write in English as a Māori writer, and how to trace links between Aotearoa and wider Pacific, Indigenous and colonial worlds.
>>Always Italicise has been short-listed for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book awards.
>>Writing while colonised.
>>English has broken my heart.
>>English has broken my heart on the radio.
>>Two Hundred and Fifty Ways to Start an Essay About Captain Cook.
>>Our stories about Cook.
>>(Not quite) 250 ways.
>>250 ways.
>>Writing the new world.
>>Interconnections.
>>Te Punga Somerville wrote a standout essay in Ngā Kete Mātauranga.
>>Environment and identity.
>>Challenging stories.
>>A bibliography of writing by Māori in English.
>>Your copy of Always Italicise.