Workshop: Elegy with Tusiata Avia
26 August 2026
In this generative workshop led by acclaimed poet and performer Tusiata Avia (NZ), explore elegy as a living, elastic form. Moving beyond traditional notions of mourning, we’ll work with elegy as a space for addressing what has been lost, what is still unfolding, and what resists being resolved.
Tusiata Avia is an award-winning poet, writer and performer from Ōtautahi Christchurch.
Her latest poetry collection, Giving Birth to My Father, is available now.
Tusiata Avia is a Samoan New Zealand poet, writer and performer. Raised by a Samoan dad and Pākehā mum, her roots are both coloniser and colonised.
In her work, she explores racism, hatred and colonisation with vulnerability and unflinching honesty. Confrontational and entertaining, raw and lyrical, disarming and thought-provoking, her poetry speaks from scars and wounds and rage. She has published 5 books of poetry, 5 children’s books, short films, radio documentaries and plays.
“I think it's good for white people to sit and squirm a bit. I mean, we're [brown people] squirming all the time.”
Tusiata Avia
Upcoming Shows
TBC
Frank Sargeson Memorial Lecture
Waikato University
Hamilton
20 September
Performance
Office Bar
Newtown, Wellington
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“I write about everything, but I also write about the same things again and again: colonisation, racism, being a woman of colour in a world seething with white privilege, being from two very different cultures, the weirdness, beauty and horror of the human condition.”
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