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Black Sugarcane is a landmark debut collection by Nafanua Purcell Kersel. Restless in form and address, these engaging and generous poems ricochet from light to dark, quiet to loud, calm to violence. We meet a loved twin sister as she dives towards the Sacred Centre, a grandmother who knows everything by heart, a shrugging office clerk, and Nafanua herself, an enigmatic shapeshifter.
At the heart of Black Sugarcane is a sequence of erasure poems arising from the seminal essay ‘In Search of Tagaloa’ by Tui Atua Tamasese Ta’isi Efi. From the worlds contained in the text, these poems rise as if inevitable. Another sequence responds to the devastating tsunami that stuck between the Samoan islands of Upolu and Tutuila in September 2009. Within the line, within the word and even the letter, these poems speak to creation and translation, destruction and regeneration.
‘The poems in Black Sugarcane are laced with panthers and cobras. Nafanua Purcell Kersel yields her machete-pen with ease, humour and aroha, clearing paths, riding waves, carving memory and bending time. Her poetic vision is both minuscule-microscopic and drone-distant, opening space for the va to take shape. She is writing on a branch from the same rakau as Selina Tusitala Marsh and Tusiata Avia.’ -Anne-Marie Te Whiu
‘I was blown away by this book. The poems are playful and powerful, fresh and original.’ -Airini Beautrais
Format: Paperback
Pages: 128
Imprint: Te Herenga Waka University Press
Publication date: 13/02/2025
Black Sugarcane
by Nafanua Purcell Kersel
Review by Maia
This debut collection of poetry is an embodiment of its namesake, rooted firmly among heavy light and saturated in sticky nourishment. The collection is sectioned into five parts, named after elongated vowels used in Gagana Sāmoa, ā, ē, ī, ō, and ū. Each part is distinct in its tone and subject matter while consistent in themes of belonging, connection to fanua and its people, and a dissonant but strong sense of home. As we traverse different oceans, islands and cities, Kersel gracefully positions the reader in the poem’s setting with a grounding fullness that honours the places and people we visit. With deft formatting, Kersel invites the reader to inhale this collection in a way that allows the words to move through you and tether to an internal rhythm. She bids us to pay attention, to notice the ever-present drumming pulse of the body and its beating. Some poems are grounded in an earthy bass and others are sharp, witty and quick like the Pātē. Most, if not all finish with an encompassing echo of vibration felt long after the words on the page end.
