Extract: Black Sugarcane, by Nafanua Purcell Kersel

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.

Black Sugarcane was the 2026 winner of the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Extracted with kind permission from Black Sugarcane by Nafanua Purcell Kersel, published by Te Herenga Waka University Press, RRP $30.00.

Black sugarcane 
(is a remedy for centipede stings)

A piece of sugarcane 
takes hold inside 
my mouth, throws it 
back to first sounds.

My teeth tear fibres,
my staunched language 
a moan. My sugared tongue
loosens syrup vowels.

Did you hear that? My sugar prickles 
at the sound of a centipede hunting.
My sweetness, braced
for the slap of stung skin.

Every Sina from Sāmoa has bitten skin,
welts like visa rejection stamps—
one for every time she fobs out, uses the wrong 
tense or forgets what language she’s chewed by.

See, the syrup is no longer sweet. 
The syrup is choked-back skin
like the cane’s inedible black, 
ripped off and spat out. 

Every time I talk barefoot, I get stung.
So I camo-talk a hundredfold, like them who 
crawl, drawl and talk good sting. 
I cut my tongue twenty-six ways,

swallow my sugar, and still get stung
on my words, my worlds
my tongues, tense—
still. 

All I have is a mouthful,
venom and sugarcane.
No hard warrior stance like the Nafanua,
I’m just some dust off the ocean.

A soft worrier, I’m Nua-No-Myth 
speaking in centipede,
with a sweet hiding 
in the dark of my cheek.

Ia gale,

the centipede is punchdrunk, 
the sting I coat with sugar.

Grandma lessons (voice)

Find blankets to drape over your back during morning devotions
so the children wake to a warm, singing mountain.

Find a sunny spot on the floor for your feet to rest on while 
your hair is being braided, then read aloud or sing.

Find in your voice a high pitch for hissing at cats, 
a low pitch for growling at dogs and cheeky boys.

Find a song, even if it’s out of tune, and sing when you’re ready. 
Everyone will join in and the tune will correct itself.

Find a nasal drone in your singing and you will 
carry the sound of all the people we come from.

in the cup 

in the cup is a root
in the root is a mourn
in the mourn is an eye
in the eye is a word
in the word is a split
in the split is a rumour
in the rumour is a war
in the war is a prayer
in the prayer is a girl
in the girl is a wound
in the wound is a child
in the child is a tree
in the tree is a star
in the star is a swell
in the swell is a name
in the name is a blaze
in the blaze is a globe
in the globe is a cup

Protection order

I will not let my pen write your name
to invoke you in black cursive 
and shatter my skin-thick protection.

I will grow babies and vegetables,
swearing teenagers and stonefruit trees,
bottle their sweetness for my winter.

I will chase toddlers and foamy slugs,
dig out splinters, nits, thorns and grassweed.
I’ll pinch out, stake up, trellis over.

I will not dare a pause, a rose,
something on paper to meddle with me,
poke my side and ask, ‘Why so busy?’

I will dry leaves for tea and seasoning,
fuss over pumpkins and baby teeth,
rub pith and grind my own grit.

I will swill wine to empty my sleep, 
smoke, sweat and sweep you under the house.
No pain, no pain, no twisted remains.

I will make mud pies and crocheted hats.
Sauerkrauted, playdoughed, sourdoughed,
tan-skinned, heavy-muscled, big-brained kids.

I will knot your name three times with cord,
walk widdershins around your memory,
grow space and tend pages, struck free of you.

Black Sugarcane (Te Herenga Waka University Press) is available in all good bookstores now.