Reviews
 Reviews of HER LIMITLESS HER
"Robinson writes with the foreknowledge that no experience or perception can be replicated, and thus the forms of her poems represent this. They are open and restless. Some read like lost epistles, spells and incantations, while others still are like transcripts to lyrical interrogations of time and memory, love and motherhood; towns and coasts, the tidelines of life and death. Robinson’s language is earthy and primal, and always active.
"The feeling in her poems moves between quietude, the ecstatic and the hysterical. She shares a simpatico in her composition techniques (paratactic juxtaposition, fragmentation, psychic reportage) with female post-Projectivists such as Denise Levertov and C.D. Wright. Many times while reading Her Limitless Her it felt as if the book were a movement or instalment from a larger scale work; a longer poem, say, in the tradition of the Cantos or the Maximus Poems. The range of her poetic concerns has the same sweep and strata as an epicist.
"Reihana Robinson, a poet who deals in ecstatically charged invocations. She is at once a shaman expressionist, cultural historian and eco-defender. At work in the poems of her second full-length collection, Her Limitless Her, is a fierce bodily intelligence and an acute sensitivity to wairua, to the spirits of person and place. Robinson engages with the past and present world, with the dead and living, in ways that are sonic and structural. Watch how her lines leap and run."
Michael Steven, Landfall, November 2019
Hoopla Series from Makaro Press
"The bounty of women, how far they'll go, how far they can stretch – to love, to encompass, to bear. Find them here: bosom-packed, dreamy, dragging their offspring, twinsets askew, peeling, darning, preening. In Her Limitless Her Reihana Robinson has created a beguiling space for her to stretch on the page, and for joy to dance and grief to spin."
An invitation to read at the 2019 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival was extended to me by Vana Manasiadis as part of the event to launch her new book of poetry called The Grief Almanac: A Sequel.
 Reviews of More Favourable Waters
"Another force is Reihana Robinson’s ‘The triumph of death’. She falsifies both glory and pity. 'Cries out for humankind: Auē. Hosanna'
"Then, a paradigm shift; she redefines power: 'Oh Superman you were never the dad we really wanted.'
"She then smooths this re-established ground: '[…] In our local lingo/we have no word for/saviour'
"In this pilgrimage which is—being purgatorial—most often racked with fear, shame, exquisite urgency and arduous mountaineering, humour and juxtaposition are especially refreshing."
–Angela Trolove, Landfall, September 2021
 Reviews of Ora Nui 3
Gail Ingram writes: “I was lucky enough to interview Anton Blank, editor of Ora Nui, New Zealand's only Māori literary journal, for Flash Frontier's Pasifika Issue (published March 2018).
Anton: I established Ora Nui to increase the range of experiences in Māori literature. There is some really good contemporary Māori writing out there, which situates Māori tradition in the broader context of urban environs and globalisation. For me this is the realistic representation of the Māori experience. Jean Riki and Reihana Robinson, for example, weave their identity into long form prose that investigates global concerns. This is Māori literature at its most exciting."
–Flash Frontier Pacifica issue
 Reviews of be the rising human
“Reihana Robinson’s poetry is pleading with us to recall the common grace of a newborn, of creation, of memories, and demanding we see how much we debase it."
–Elizabeth Kirkby-McLeod
What the stars say
I hear bird bones crack, splinter.
I hear offal slosh in a bucket. Matariki have seen it all before —
my star companions remain silent.
Have they gone mad?
Yes, mad as a meat axe.
I hear gunshots at the growing wall,
I hear laughter at cocktail hour
out of mouths as wide as mako shark.
The bleached face of Sirius gives no
clue, all are catching a ferry to the Isle
of the Blessed. My ageless self trapped in a maimai —
who knows how temporary? It seems I am lasting forever, as long as
stories repeat.
I blush and quiver to see myself
related to this pale imitation of the gods.
What They Are Saying About AUĒ RONA:
“…a vibrant and inventive first collection.”
-Siobhan Harvey review on Beattie's Book Blog
“…a masterful reworking of myth”
-Saradha Koirala on Tim Jones Books blog
"Reihana's poetry is absolutely stunning. Her revolutionary voice has a magical, ethereal quality about it. I always want to read more."
-Anton Blank, Editor of Ora Nui, Maori Literary Journal
“Energetic, complex, filled with provocative imagery and luscious language.”
-Mai Review Journal
“I love the mythic, edgy vision of Reihana’s poems.”
-Joy Harjo, acclaimed Native American poet, musician and author.
“In this compelling first collection, Reihana Robinson offers a nuanced re-imagining of the Maori Rona legend through lyrical poems of love, transgression and sorrow that flesh out and challenge the archetypal notion of the woman in the moon. Here Rona's voice alternates between worry for her children's future in a contemporary New Zealand and an ecstatic appreciation for the ambiguous stroke of luck that elevated her from the life of an ordinary woman eking out a difficult living to the consort and lover of a celestial being.”
-Janelle Elyse Kihlstrom, editor Melusine, or Woman in the 21st Century, an online journal of literature and art
Praise for AUP New Poets 3:
“With Reihana Robinson there is a delightful Pacific Island flavour. Done exquisitely though and not patronisingly. I liked 'Thinking of my Father' best, I think. There is an air of authority about the poems that is not too obtrusive. And the speculation about Thai restaurants, fine. And, 'Waiting for the Palagi' - forever? There is much here that is worthy of some careful reading; highly recommended.” –Trevor Reeves, Southern Ocean Review
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