Review: Manuali'i by Rex Letoa Paget

In July 2024, I shared Rex Letoa Paget’s poem ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ with some Indigenous creatives at Christchurch Women’s Prison. Like me, the wāhine drew strength from the poem’s visceral honesty. Some loved it so much that they wrote poems in response. Others used ‘there’s nothing to do in this town but…’ as a reframe to shed light on their own realities pre-incarceration. 

We all agreed that powerful poetry provides a platform for urgent dialogue. Just as Manuali’i is a collection of moments of loss, love, heartbreak, and everything in between, it also enables others to dissect those moments for themselves in their own lives. It is an honour to find a safe landing place within Paget’s work again. 

‘there are lightning storms under your tongue older than the bible i feel them in tidal waves when masina pulls our bodies into midnight prayer’ 

There is no shortage of lines in Manuali’i that feel both ancient and fresh. The opening poem ‘MANUALI’I’ feels as close as one could get to an origin story whilst simultaneously acknowledging contemporary Indigenous truth-making and remaking. The section pulls itself to the page, fragments, and then finds a steadiness in its sporadic shape and subject matter. The opening breaths of ‘MANUALI’I’ alone feel like an exercise in tenacious worldbuilding. Every stanza, earnest, nebulous, and stunning, waves its hands to the reader as if to say, ‘I dare you to take the strength out of this. I dare you to give this a name.’ 

As the collection progresses, Paget’s language stretches and flows to the dynamism of trans-temporality. Moments of joy, pinky promises, and questions on the tips of fingers are handled carefully. At first, I needed to find an anchoring point within Paget’s poems: common ground in our gods, common experiences of new love at Saturday markets, or common kai. But these poems capture a passage of growth to be felt, not seen. 

‘i put your name in two separate crystals and gave you back to saltwater. loving you was a holy ceremony letting you go had to be done in ritual.’

‘Newtown Is For Lovers’ hits with force and ferocity. But nestled within familiar streets and familiar aches is a tenderness that queer love and queer heartbreak knows well. I read, ‘mama taught me to give abundantly / when i have enough. my palms were / open to your Skin with nothing but / gentle at my fingertips,’ and I wanted to throw my head into the ocean—in the best way possible. The poem is just one example of why this collection unequivocally deserves to stand alongside those nominated for this year’s Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry. It’s a whole-body experience, where the words are footprints of something far more significant than one reading can reveal.

Here, love prevails in both its absence and resounding memory. In ‘Elysian plains’, an afterlife grows and is tended to over pages and promises. But these poems are not without teeth. In ‘Darling I Know You Suffer And I’m Here For You,’ Paget paces his line breaks to draw just enough breath from the reader, so we sit in wānanga and sit some more. We read without dry eyes. Again, in earnest ache. Again, it is a poem that is felt and not just seen. 

‘Elysian plains’ reveals itself slowly. For anyone familiar with the deep grief of a loved one, it is both cathartic and confronting. The poems swallow both whole bodies and timelines. And so it is with relief that I meet ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ six months after our first encounter—this time with quiet gratitude. 

‘Featherweight’ arrives, and, at first, I thought I missed it in the ‘older woman / who has desert skies for eyes.’ For a collection that builds and shapeshifts, this section forms from sharp flashes of familiar skin and eyes but catches and recoils before we can place the significance of body and breath. The poem, ‘Just Something To Do While We’re Here,’ reveals itself in the final stanzas. While gods gently prod rivers into bends, loved ones carve crossings of their inclination. 

‘be a simple, kinda man. be something you love and understand. yeah gee that’s what life is all about.

got his place to land i watch him take off.’

‘Golden Queen’ and ‘Zapelu Kidz’ crackle and shine like a long-awaited garage meet-up. We all know their beauty, song and the way they feel to dance and community-build alongside. But when ‘Fa’amanū’ lands, a reader, now trusting, is assured of their own feet. Still shapeless, still earnest, ‘Fa’amanū’ lands poised to catch all the beauty that can grow here. Manuali’i is a must-read, a must-feel, and a must-be celebrated.