CONTRIBUTORS

Nafanua Purcell Kersel

Nafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa‘itea, Faleālupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu) is a writer, poet, and performer who was born in Sāmoa and raised in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. Her poetry has been widely published and she was the 2025 Emerging Pasifika Writer in Residence at the IIML, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. In 2026, she won the country’s most prestigious poetry award – the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for her first poetry collection Black Sugarcane (Te Herenga Waka University Press). She lives in a multigenerational family home in Maraekākaho, Hawke’s Bay, Aotearoa NZ.

‘Carry the sound of all the people we come from’: Nafanua Purcell Kersel in conversation with Anne-Marie Te Whiu

In 2019, I found myself in a classroom at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington sitting alongside 15 other Māori and Pasifika writers doing the CREW 256 course, led by Victor Rodger. One of those students whose writing stopped me in my tracks was Nafanua Purcell Kersel. Our shared journey to publication sings synchronicities in terms of timing and our chosen artist for the cover design of our debut poetry collections. Both of us unknowingly selected pieces by the remarkable artist, Momoe i manu ae ala atea’e Tasker.

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Moana Pōetics

We build a safe around our birth stones crafted from a dream, a gourd, a drum–made chant. Pile it high with frigate bird bones, song bones, bones of cherished names. We rub sinnet along our thighs and lash our cache. …

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