Ben Brown delivers the Margaret Mahy Memorial Lecture at Word Christchurch 2021

Lyttelton poet Ben Brown (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Koroki, Ngāti Paoa) speaks about the power of imagination and its deep roots in te ao Māori.

(This Margaret Mahy Memorial Lecture was a highlight of the 2021 WORD Christchurch Festival)

• Listen to Ben Brown's acclaimed 2020 Read NZ lecture on youth justice here

Storytelling, words, imagination are all concepts linked in the Western World to the idea of literacy.

In this ground-breaking lecture, Ben Brown reconsiders these ideas from the standpoint of the oral culture of Māori life before contact with European settlers.

Weaving together intensely personal memories of childhood, Brown explores what storytelling means to him now as a writer and poet.

Ben Brown: The Port Nicholson Exchange and Public Library opened in 1841 and it is noted in the histories as the first public library in Aotearoa New Zealand.

I’ve got news for the histories because when I was a kid my mum took me to the first public library in Aotearoa and it was still open. What’s more, it’s still open today. And what’s more than more, it’s a Māori library of an oral culture and it opened the first day of the waka. Mum took me to the harakeke section of the oldest library in Aotearoa. No more than a minute’s walk from the bedroom.

Turning west through the hallway, through the glass-panelled art deco door at the end that opened onto a curved concrete porch – impressively pillared, but merely for effect. Three steps up or down depending on your perspective. Then westward still across a lawn of vast expanse which one day I would have to mow with precision. Every Sunday in the flush of Spring and early summer, till the dry-off somehow made it less of a chore.

Where I would find myself in the company of an old kowhai tree, which, by the way, you should never offend with the indignities of axe or saw. Nor any example of machinery which could topple it, or otherwise dislodge it from the whenua. Kowhai has potency. Seek permission before you mess with energies such as these that render the yellow of the sun. Or you do so at your peril.

Beside the kowhai tree, the harakeke section of the oldest library in Aotearoa announces its presence – its wisdom, its age, its obvious utility, with a gentle clattering of seeds in their pods and great tupuna leaves in conversation with Tāwhirimātea, of the winds and storms. Emerging from the earth with a sense of such permanence that mum reckoned, because of its great size, it would have been part of a pa harakeke. A plantation of indomitable unity.

So the metaphors and the stories start there. And I learn as my mother gathers harakeke leaves. Tuia, Tui Tuia. This is the act of sewing – of threading or lashing or binding so that strands, threads, ropes, strings, plaits and cords of similar dimensions are brought together by certain techniques and skills.

Tui is to sew.

As with a bone needle.

Or to twist and splice together with strong and dextrous fingers and special knowledge – wananga – on the qualities and nature of the fibres and the plants so as to form lengths or otherwise bind them in unions of greater strength.

Tuia Te Ha is the threading of breath. The voice, the tone, the timbre and intonation.

Tuia Te Kupu is threading the word. A defining agency. A vehicle of meaning. A name, a deed, a shape of things, a state of being. Tuia Te Korero is threading the story. The narrative. The revelation of intent.

Tau i te maramatanga. Mine is the light of understanding.

Tihei Mauri Ora.

And there you have in a sense the whakapapa of a story from imagination to understanding.

Ben Brown

Born in 1962, Ben writes children's books, non-fiction and short stories for children and adults. Born in Motueka, he has been a tobacco farm labourer, tractor driver and market gardener. Since 1992, he has been a publisher and writer, collaborating with his wife, illustrator Helen Taylor, in most of his 17 publications.

Many of Brown's books have a strong New Zealand nature background. Brown and Taylor were short-listed in 2005 for the Te Kura Pounamu Award in the LIANZA Children's Book Awards for Nga Raukura Rima Tekau Ma Rima, the Te Reo edition of Fifty-Five Feathers. The English edition was also shortlisted for the Russell Clark Award in 2005.

A Booming in the Night, written by Brown and illustrated by Taylor, won Best Picture Book at the 2006 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. The judges report said that the book was, 'a captivating, polished and deceptively simple package - a pictorially stunning book with an educational message that also manages to capture the cheeky personality of one of our endangered bird species.' The book also made the 2006 Storylines Notable Picture Book List.

Denis Welch said of Brown's autobiographical book A Fish in the Swim of the World, that, 'this is a cut above most autobiographies, giving us a vivid picture of hard-working rural life and a wonderful portrait gallery of farm people and family characters.' (New Zealand Listener, September 30, 2006)

In 2008, The Apple – published by Penguin – was listed as a 2009 Storylines Notable Picture Book. The Sparrow and the Feather (Puffin, 2009) was illustrated by Helen Taylor. Brown's other publications include: The Cat with no Tail (Shadowcatchers, 1992); The Penguin who Wanted to Fly (Shadowcatchers,1993); Who is Brian Bear (Shadowcatchers, 1996); Brian Bear The Bouncing Ball (Shadowcatchers, 1996); Natural New Zealand ABC Wallchart (Reed, 2002); Te Tahae o nga Tae (Reed, 2002); Thief of Colours (Reed, 2003); Natural New Zealand ABC (Reed, 2004); Pukeko counts to Ten Wall Frieze (Reed, 2005); Tuna Moemoea (Reed, 2005); Eel Dreaming (Reed, 2005); The Rainmakers (Reed, 2007).

Ben Brown was awarded the Māori Writer’s Residency at the Michael King Writers’ Centre for 2011.

On the Road to Tuapeka (Scholastic) was published in 2011. A junior picture book, On the Road to Tuapeka combines Brown's text and Scott Tulloch's illustrations. In the book, Heka the Weka meets Reka the Weka on the road to Tuapeka, and along with the rest of their friends (and a double-decker bus!) they undertake the rest of their journey.

In 2012 The Great Orlando (Scholastic) was published. Written by Ben Brown and illustrated by Helen Taylor, The Great Orlando tells the tale of Sunday Jones, whose family trials prompt him to enter a talent show as a magician.

2013 saw the publication of Brown's picture book The Story of the Ship Rat (Scholastic), illustrated by Helen Brown.

Brown's multimedia work Between the Kindling and the Blaze: Reflections on the Concept of Mana was published by Anahera Press in 2013. The book, which also includes a 10-track atmospheric CD, tackles mana, one of the most misunderstood and misused words in the Maori language. Paula Green said of the book in her NZPoetryShelf review: "The poems, also a shelter for friends, family, whanau, are miniature edifices crafted with dignity and love. These poems become vessels for the poet’s loving korero. Mana is there between the kindling and the blaze, between an idea and an experience."

In January 2014 Brown's picture book Dogs of the Vastness: Lyttelton and the Ice Dogs of Antarctica was published. Illustrated by Trish Knowles, Dogs of the Vastness intersperses a fictional story with factual tidbits about dogs, Antarctica, and the role of port town Lyttelton.

In early 2020, Brown taught a creative writing workshop for the YPs (Young People) of Te Puna Wai ō Tuhinapo, an Oranga Tamariki Youth Justice Residence near Christchurch, as part of Read NZ's Writers in Youth Justice programme.

The project resulted in an anthology of the YPs poetry, edited by Brown and published by Read NZ Te Pou Muramura, entitled How the fuck did I get here? Soliloquies of youth.

In November 2020, Brown delivered the Read NZ Te Pou Muramura Pānui (previously the Book Council Lecture) about the project: If nobody listens then no one will know.

The talk was recorded and broadcast by RNZ as part of its Smart Talk series.

A second edition of the anthology, re-titled How did I get here? was published in the same month by The Cuba Press.

In 2021 he would be appointed the inaugural Te Awhi Rito Reading Ambassador, travelling the nation to nurture young readers.

Biography courtesy of Read NZ Te Pou Muramura

This session was recorded in partnership with WORD Christchurch