New Book

be the rising human

be the rising human is available at Carson’s Bookstore in Thames, Paradox Books in Devonport, and on Amazon both in paperback and in Kindle.

All proceeds go to Palestine Children’s Relief Fund NZ and Kia Ora Gaza.

Purchase here:

Carson’s Bookshop
Paradox Books
Amazon

“In her latest poetry collection, be the rising human, Reihana Robinson is a wide-ranging and Whitmanesque visionary. Her planetary poems at once celebrate the earth, excoriate the new global political order, and lament for what we have lost or are losing. This is a writer both alert and elegiac, with one ear pressed to the ground, listening to the world's breathing. I count myself a long-time fan of her lyricism and insights.”

–David Eggleton, Aotearoa New Zealand Poet Laureate 2019-2022

Be the rising human

Ava and Jasmine wanted to marry you
All the girls wanted to marry you
and you were not even four years old
When you slithered into this world
you opened your eloquent eyes
and cradled silence
From your ancestors, harmony impregnated all pores
Those eyes saw distances beyond the now
observed here from afar and afar from near
A small cough like a chipmunk scattering leaves
and words flow into poems into songs
You are thrumming. Music another name
A tiger-swallowtail alights on bee balm
vacated by hummingbirds and the knock
knock of a pileated woodpecker high in hemlock
tells us you are in this hemisphere, panting for cool air
It’s coming and the cold cold winter too
but autumn gifts us your embrace
Those genes are not ordinary DNA, those genes
are pure love (made in Australia like your kuia)
pushed out in Aotearoa now rising in Londontown
Be the leaf, be the branch, be the trunk, be the root
Be the river, be the air, be the soil, be the garden
Be the rising human in this world, beloved