I passed a kōwhai tree in flower this morning and thought of Emily. The early springtime flowers are opening up one after another and the tūī birds are getting louder and louder. Soon they’ll crowd the kōwhai, turning their beaks bright yellow with pollen. I love to see a puffed up tūī singing in black Read More…
Month: August 2019
Some Lighted Windows
What made Edwin Harris draw and paint the view from Marsland Hill in New Plymouth 3 August 1860? And what made him produce multiple versions of the scene that shows troops from the 40th Regiment being brought ashore and lined up to march on Māori positions near Waitara, 16 km to the north of the Read More…
Captain Stoney’s Awful Novel
The pencilled comments in Puke Ariki’s copy of Taranaki: A Tale of the War by Henry Butler Stoney are unanimous in their condemnation of the book. ‘Bunkum,’ says one. And: ‘It is rarely I have read a book in which I have not found some passage worthy of remark or of transcription, but this is Read More…
Five Venturesome Women in a Bullock Cart
‘I believe I was at that time the only girl in all Taranaki who ever wrote a line.’ Emily Harris’s words, written years after the events they describe, are still electrifying. A young woman, writing poetry, in wartime Taranaki? Who knew. She goes on: ‘I did write some verses in the evening but never showed Read More…