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My poem steals my neighbour’s land, and everybody’s land. My poem steals 94 percent of all the land in New Zealand. It steals millions upon millions of acres of land.

— Tusiata Avia

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More quotes by Tusiata Avia

In the space of a few generations, my poem has traumatised the people who originally owned this land and their language almost disappears.

There is truly nothing more to think about.

My poem kidnaps children, puts them in state welfare institutions, abuses them and stops them speaking their own language.

The neighbours hear me writing a poem about colonisation and they yell: Stop that “race-baiting”, our kids are trying to sleep.

Now, I’m howling and ripping off my clothes and writing a poem which is “inciting violence” right through the walls of my house.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Tusiata Avia (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.