REVERSE

About the author: Poet and painter Rebecca Hawkes grew up on a sheep and beef farm near Methven and now lives and works in Wellington. She is an editor for literary journal Sweet Mammalian and co-editor of the forthcoming climate change poetry anthology No Other Place to Stand. In 2020, she was the NZ Young Writers’ Festival Writer in Residence and held a NZ Pacific Studios Ema Saikō Fellowship.

In brief: The world famous in New Zealand Peach Teats sign on State Highway 1 serves as the unlikely inspiration for this evocative poem about dairy cattle and modern farming practices. If you’ve ever driven past the sign with its coy illustrated calf, you too may have wondered whether calves do indeed love ’em. According to this poem they sure do because these teats deliver all that they need to quench “their pure thirsty thoughts”. Rebecca Hawkes imbues an otherwise business-as-usual day on the farm with a dash of romanticism, paying tribute to innocent animals who are seen as machines that consume and produce on demand.

Why I like it: New Zealand literature’s troughs are overfilling with poems about farms and the countryside, but Rebecca has truly made the genre her own, eschewing rose-tinted pastoral scenes for vistas that are much more confronting and beautifully grotesque. The bulk of her debut collection Meat Lovers is inspired by her childhood on the farm, and includes poems about the effects of farming on the environment. Beyond its central theme, “Peach Teats” also bears the linguistic hallmarks of Rebecca’s poetry, such as the blending of the visceral lyrical (“suckling frothy spittle and grunt”) and the disarmingly prosaic (note her borrowing of Peach Teats’ own marketing lines in the penultimate couplet). Rebecca’s poems are sometimes much longer and more elaborate, revelling in excess and sprawling imagery. Here, she succinctly captures the contrast between the crushing claustrophobia of the feeding trough with the blissed-out peace of a herd of cattle happily feeding, doing what they’re expected to do.

Read more: Rebecca is a prolific poet and has had work published in numerous journals. “Softcore coldsores”, a small selection of her poems, can be found in the joint collection AUP New Poets 5 and is the perfect introduction to her maximalist style and many interests.

Re-verse

INTRODUCED BY CHRIS TSE

PEACH TEATS

(calves love ’em)

so much suckling frothy spittle and grunt a crescent of devotees hunched at the steaming trough

barely able to breathe and drink at once in quenched surrender to the rubber teat

their pretty eyes their pure thirsty thoughts no useless knowledge no wondering where

their mothers are only hot sweet powdered milk and the unique patented internal collapsing flap valve

self cleaning leak resistant flow regulating like any perfect body or machine

by Rebecca Hawkes From Meat Lovers (Auckland University Press, 2022)

Going bush

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNA BRIGGS

Return to childhood memories. Tim Park talks to Hannah Zwartz about his work with endangered species.

Kaiwharawhara stream flows from headwaters in Zealandia, through Ōtari/Wilton’s Bush and down Ngaio Gorge, to join the harbour by the Interislander car park. It’s the part of town where Ōtari’s Kaiwhakahaere (manager) Tim Park grew up. As a child he played on the boulders of the Alpine Garden at Ōtari. “When this job came up, strong memories of time spent here as a kid were part of the attraction.”

Ōtari is still a great place for a bush walk, with or without kids. There are now supplejack tunnels on the cabbage tree lawn and hedge mazes by the lookout, or there’s still the time-honoured tradition of playing by the stream. As well as recreation, there’s learning and inspiration aplenty.

With nearly 20 years’ experience in ecological protection and restoration, the aptly named Tim Park has been instrumental in projects including Predator Free Wellington and the Forest in the Heart of Wellington. Since joining Ōtari in January 2021, Park has overseen a redesign of the visitor centre and a major expansion of the plant conservation laboratories, which study the best way to store and grow native seeds. International seed banks, such as those at Kew Gardens, are doing similar work across the globe, but they don’t specialise in New Zealand plants, says Park. “We still don’t know much about how to store many of our native species.”

The lab controls environmental conditions – temperature, light, humidity as well as fungal associations – to determine the optimal conditions for storage and propagation. Some of the endangered species conserved in the laboratory are down to one or two individuals in the wild. One such is Pennantia baylisiana, commonly known as Three Kings Kaikōmako or Kaikōmako Manawa Tāwhi.

Work like this puts Ōtari in the handful of Gardens of International Significance designated by the New Zealand Gardens Trust. The country’s only public botanic garden dedicated solely to native plants, it’s an important part of our national plant conservation network. And it’s crucial to local ecosystems. “If you want to see the true Wellington forest, this is the biggest and best bit left,” says Park. With 98% of our old-growth forest gone, the seven hectares fenced off by Job Wilton in the 1880s is extra rare in that it’s on a sunny, north-facing slope.

Around that forest area in 1926, Dr Leonard Cockayne established an open air native plant museum. He had the foresight to create ecosystems from around Aotearoa, not just collections of plants. While some beds are traditionally “botanical” (for example where different types of Veronica or Hebe are growing together, showing their wide range of adaptations from Chatham Island ground-huggers to dainty alpine whipcords), plants are also grown in ecosystem gardens, recreating the plant associations found in nature. There’s the Wellington Coastal Garden, the Rainshadow Garden, the Black Beech Forest, and the 38 Degree Garden with plants from northern parts of New Zealand.

The Black Beech Forest is one of Park’s favourite areas at Ōtari. Even under the large trees, there’s a light, airy feeling. “What I tell people gardening at home is, think about the feeling you’re trying to create with plants. Lush plantings with nikau palms and rengarenga give a warm, tropical feeling, while tussocks en masse can be a bit bleak, creating more of a cold, alpine feeling like being in Waiouru.”

His other tip for home gardeners is to cover the ground with a layer of mulch. “It’s the key to reducing maintenance – it saves you time weeding and watering.”

The new visitor centre has been given the name Tāne Whakapiripiri Tāne who shelters the many identities of the atua of forest, humans, and birds. The relationship with mana whenua is important to Park. “We’re in a process of decolonising, rethinking and reframing the wider perspective of our relationships with nature. It’s not a change of direction but ongoing respect and a deepening of our appreciation of mana whenua.”

Some of Tim Park’s favourite plants at Ōtari Wilton’s Bush

Hīnau Elaeocarpus dentatus: An “unsung hero” for Wellington’s climate (the original name for the Kelburn ridgeline was Pukehīnau.) An important ecosystem tree, home to epiphytes and birds. Hīnau was also used medicinally and the fruits were soaked, crumbled, and baked in hāngi to form a sort of cake. Whau Entelea arborescens: A coastal tree with large light-green leaves. “It’s fast-growing and great for privacy; a sprinter rather than a longdistance runner. It starts to fall apart after five to seven years, so plant another tree alongside it at the same time to take over.” Sometimes called New Zealand balsa, the wood is very buoyant. Kuta Eleocharis sphacelata: An extremely soft sedge, found in local wetlands, whose soft fibres were used to weave undergarments (maro), hats and delicate kete. Kōhia Passiflora tetrandra: New Zealand passionfruit has fragrant yellow flowers followed by orange fruits which are favourites with the birds. Humans seem to have a hard-wired aversion to vines, says Park, but they add another dimension to gardens, often supporting insect and bird life and in this case appealing to the sense of smell.

Raupō Taranga

Xeronema callistemon: “I love this plant for its tenacity; it literally grows clinging to rock, on cliffs on the Poor Knights Islands.” The bright red flowers look great crowded into pots in a frost-free, sunbaked spot.