Hibiscus Tart by Carin Smeaton
November 2024
Tart was a term aimed at wāhine toa who were confident, outspoken, and Indigenous – mana wāhine who were our nans, mums, aunties, and sisters. As staunch advocates for social justice, they questioned the establishment, including the literary gatekeepers of the time.
Hibiscus Tart gives a seriously fan-gurly nod to this radical cohort of mana wāhine. It’s for all you bloody tarts out there doing the hard mahi, equalising the playing field, feeding the fam, calling the karanga, surviving, representing, past, present and future.
“Carin’s kupu come sideways, they break the rules, they respect the kuia and the power of slang, her poems are a testament to staying sly and aware, her angles are always a beautiful surprise, she embraces the ordinary and the divine, and biting into her mahi is to experience both, like popping candy let loose in the cage of the waha.” —Talia Marshall
“Poetry that bears brave, hard-hitting witness to Aotearoa today, calls out its inequalities, spits at its abuses, sings of its cultural vibrancy, weaves with its surviving colours.” —Tracey Slaughter