Serie Barford

Serie (Cherie) Barford was born in Aotearoa to a Samoan-born mother and a Scottish, English and Scandinavian Kiwi father.   Her early collections Plea to the Spanish Lady (1985) and Glass Canisters (1989) were published by Hard Echo Press and Tapa Talk was published by Huia in 2007.  Her poetry and short stories have been published in various national and international print and electronic anthologies.

Serie performed with Poylnation, a poetry troupe, at the Brisbane Poetry Festival in 2008 and was the recipient of the Seresin Residency in 2011.  She performed in the 2013 Auckland Fringe Festival and is currently in discussion with a publisher in the Ukaraine about the translation of Tapa Talk into Ukarainian.

Serie grew up knowing that the narratives that were part of her family discourse were not part of the sanctioned national narrative and were basically ignored or rejected by school teachers.  This has affected Serie’s choice of subject matter and she is drawn to the obscured narratives of  'other voices'.

Making Starfish

to the untrained eye 
starfish have no front or back

but village women know better 
these days they cut 
stencils 
from discarded x-ray plates

create whole beds of starfish 
on bark cloth and cotton 
sheets

when you cut x-rays 
they utter a peculiar cry

but starfish split silently 
make more of themselves 
to fill up 
empty spaces

something the lonely could do

Statement

I wrote this for a lonely man I knew whose outlook and involvement in the wider world diminished as he systematically withdrew himself from communities of belonging, including his own family, and became a recluse.  Towards the end of his life he was interested in little else than his medical ailments and only a clone of himself would’ve sufficed as a friend. 

Published in Tapa Talk, OBAN 06 Online,  Blackmail Press 29,  Booksellers NZ (Blog Tuesday Poem June 14 2011).

Te Awaroa (The Valley of the Long River)

Molly traversed the ocean on a sailing ship

that floundered on sandbars within sight of land

she spilt with horses, fruit and other pale faces

into a river valley drowned long ago by the sea

and weighted by her buttoned boots

sank beneath the wails of migratory birds

fish unpinned her knee-length hair

flicked their tails through her petticoats

kissed her hands and lips farewell

but what everyone remembers

is the waves carrying Molly ashore

and how her husband knelt beside her

polished an apple from the capsized cargo

on the left pocket of his torn, briny shirt

then sliced it in half with a bushman’s knife

to reveal the five-pointed star of Venus

when he pressed it gently against her cheek

the eggshell-white of his face

was so tightly stretched over the bones

it appeared to be on the verge of tearing

Statement


This poem is from a clutch of poems that I wrote to acknowledge and celebrate Albert Wendt’s importance as a trail blazer for writers and artists of Polynesian descent.  It was included in a special issue of The Contemporary Pacific: Flying Fox Excursions:  Albert Wendt’s Creative and Critical Legacy in Oceania. I incorporated some of his writing into my poems (with his knowledge and consent) to demonstrate how he is my ‘literary papa’ and how we’re part of each other through the woven threads of our Samoan DNA and our writing.  The italicized lines are quoted from Albert’s novel, The Mango Kiss (Auckland;  Vintage, 2003, page 91).   I got the idea for the poem whilst talking to a neighbour who used to dive around the Kaipara Harbour.  He told me how the men often settled in Aotearoa then sent for their wives and how he’d seen hoof prints in a ship wreck that were made by frantic horses as they tried to escape a sinking ship. 

Published in The Contemporary Pacific,  A Journal of Island Affairs, vol 22:2,  2010: University of Hawai’i Press.

Culture Shock

1

bussing from the west into town

mumbling my destination to the driver

so shy I couldn’t hold the eye

of any other passenger

sitting by myself

every day an ordeal

that first year at university

I almost went back to the factory

but I wanted out

2

penned in theatres

lectured and air-conditioned

hundreds of us at a time

freezing or sweltering

you’d have thought they’d get it right

all those brains inculcating us

and no idea how to set a thermostat

3

I wanted to be home

ranging the peninsula

a Swandri to put on

or take off

with the mood of the day

the salt wind in my face

less harsh than the woman

in gumboots and dungarees

her face scrubbed bare

and not a factory foreman

now a cow to milk in sight

she believed adornment satisfied men

manipulated and degraded women

but my family always dressed for the city

not that we had much to choose from

4

she didn’t understand my bolt for freedom

the gamble for my future on a piece of paper

my family could ostentatiously frame

their eyes moist as they wrote home

the future full of answered prayers

their sacrifices rewarded

until we all understood

the unchartered frontier of academia

had unhinged me forever from my elders

I’d never belong completely to the past again

to the factory floor

my mother bottling gin at Seagars

feet swollen from standing overtime

weary and sodden in a smock

no adornment there

just remittances for Samoan postboxes

money for hospital bills and liquid food

for my dying opa’s veins

she couldn’t fathom my father

desperate to meet the mortgage

hanging out washing

supporting the extended family

while veins spread above his garters

and his lungs clogged with dust

every day the same

polishing shoes for work

one pair black

the other brown

after dinner at six

the numbness

the dullness of drudgery

shouting and tears

solidarity

the complicity of silence

I fought it all

like the Saturday night

I fought my father

for the right to slash

my lips red

finally

a compromise

pink lipstick

not too dark

until I left school

then any colour I liked

I held him to it

5

I ached to paint the strong

pale moth of my tutor

all grown-up in her gumboots

dull as a nesting duck

I had chromatic dreams

wished I could afford the make-up

applied from tester at Smith & Caughey’s

perhaps a drench of perfume

instead of Janola at my cuffs

she found me swamped by family ties

and a limited view of life

it was obvious to me

she hadn’t grown up with

thumbs pressing her down

we talked

some of her ideas

got through to me

years later I met her mother

at a hui for artists

she was a weaver

a passionate woman

with a complicated past

was fussy with her food

I couldn’t get over

how she loved her daughters

even when they lived

lives of their own

6

I took to dressing like a gypsy

taking risks to know I was alive

one Guy Fawkes night

high as the skyrockets

hissing over the bay

I walked a sewer pipe

excavated a niche beneath some tracks

laughed as the train rumbled over me

cried when it passed without taking me

I travelled to Europe and Asia

revelled in my mind

crumpled sheets

exotic and pungent odours

opened chakras

was opened by surgeons

went to theatres and galleries

read poetry and hummed tunes

I’d forget in the morning

loved unwisely

just to feel my veins throb

and arms that wanted me

discovered that middle-class men

made love to their wives

professional women

chic in simple lines and basic colours

had sex with women who wore fake pearls

7

It was at this time

I created my own rule of thumb

if you have to buy cheap

buy dark and plain

it nudged the ruffled florals

out of my wardrobe

when I finally hung myself

out to air in the Waitakere wind

I thought of my tutor

woman-proud in her gumboots

wondered if she’d recognise

or even remember me

sometimes I hear her on the radio

she writes with authority on Polynesian girls

and barriers to learning in the education system

I think my pale face and blue eyes fooled her

she should have looked at my hair

my shovel-shaped incisors

the angle of my jaw

met So’onalafo my grandmother

a matriarch to rival any doña

thought about what happens

when you challenge someone so thoroughly

they have nothing left to believe in

but the words of strangers

breathing in a vacuum

unable to connect with family or faith

mind blazing with knowledge

wondering where it will all

end 

Statement
This poem explores my experiences in New Zealand’s university system and how it affected me. I was brought up the 'old way' within the church and with chaperones and stories of Samoan spirits and history and found myself alone in a strange place under the glare of the feminist movement (late 1970s and early 80s).  Every time I spoke in a tutorial I was mocked and my worldview was ridiculed.  It was a very stressful time.  One of my tutors wore dungarees and gumboots to class and assumed that I was European and to this day I find it difficult to even look at her without reliving the alienation and pain I felt in her lectures. When I graduated with a BA I was offered the chance to do a Masters degree but couldn’t wait to escape.  Once my parents secured my graduation portrait on the wall I went wild for a few years.  I felt that I didn’t belong anywhere as I was too palagi to be a 'true' Samoan and too Samoan to live without cultural tension in the palagi world. 

Published in Tapa Talk, Pacific Identities and Well-being: Cross-Cultural Perspective (Routledge: 2013).

Found Again 

   

our love is a tracking device

more sure than any global

positioning system

just carve us into wooden tablets

then imprint us on opposite corners

of a mighty length of siapo

and watch tusili’i spring forth

making bridges to connect us

over rock-bound starfish

scampering centipedes and

the footprints of bemused birds

we have many stories of

losing and finding each other

of getting lost

and losing others

but today all is well

I lie beneath the old mango tree

smothered with coconut oil

embellished with wild flowers

and droplets of your sweat

your aging shoulders

still fling back proud

and I still arch towards you

like a young sweetheart

you have whispered in my hair

found again

and we both know

this is our final harbour

*siapo - bark cloth (Samoan)

* tusili’i – fine or way lines used to connect individual designs and spaces on siapo (Samoan)

Statement

I wrote this for my partner who I first met in January 1982 in Samoa.  We stayed loosely connected over the years, although we each lived our own lives in different countries.  We finally connected as partners and have been together for 10 years.

Published in Tapa Talk, Mauri Ola (AUP: 2010), Writing the Pacific (PWF: 2007), Dear Heart: 150 New Zealand Love Poems (Random: 2012)

Plea to the Spanish Lady 

The people of Western Samoa were told that the sickness which eventually killed 22 per cent of their population after World War 1 was called 'The Spanish Lady'.  This is one man’s plea.

Important streets fall before you

and now  Talune berthed in Apia

harbours your sway

Sway not our way  Lady

Such homage grieves us

Aboard Talune the Doctor examines

bodies propped by mail bags

Colonel Logan agrees

                                    “Yes,

a sea-sick lot this one.”

The ocean is calm

Today the Samoan Times is all news:

death notices and a front page

Today the editor died

Today Teuuila’s screams awoke me

as she lay between her parents

dipping fingers in their sweat

Her name means flower  Lady

see her tremble and wilt

We will bury her in lavalava

scented with frangipani

He’s never cared for us   Lady

He’s not my brother in Christ  He can’t be

Logs tumble, tumble from his eyes

Crosses bearing corpses swim in them

My flesh is moist  too moist

Who will harvest the taro and breadfruit?

Who will instruct the young?  Feed my children?

Don’t linger Spanish Lady

The trenches are full and

my family spills into the ocean

fevered and dazed

drowning at each other’s feet

Go now  Lady

We have fallen before you

Statement

I started reading poetry at the Globe Tavern, an Auckland pub, which was demolished long ago.  The Dawn Raids and the Springbok Tour were still fresh in people’s minds and hidden/suppressed  narratives were being revealed.  The Spanish Influenza was spread by soldiers returning from World War One and was personified as the Spanish Lady.  I remember reading this poem to a disbelieving Globe audience and being heckled by people who didn’t have a sense of 'colonisation' and what it does to people. New Zealand administered Western Samoa at this time and incompetently handled the flu epidemic.   Almost one quarter of the population died. 

Published in Plea to the Spanish Lady (Hard Echo Press: 1985), Pacific Voices:An Anthology of Maori and Pacific Writing (Macmillan: 1989), Whetu Moana (AUP 2003),  Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive, New Zealand Poets in Performance (AUP: 2008).

How Things Change

       

Now that I’m an old woman

I hear breathing in my head

a patina of brown spots

speckle the veined spread

of my knobbly hands

and the nights seem longer

so I dream to pass the time

last night I dressed you with

the scented heads of gardenia

strung with seeds salvaged

from the ocean’s embrace

we slept on an island

floating in the fragrance

of distant mountains

and when the moon rose

rocky outcrops exhaled the heat

they’d snaffled from the sun

to warm our tangled limbs

we never imagined

our secret pandanus grove

turning into clumps

of paspalum spikelets

or our young love

giving way to bile and age

how things change

the littoral forests have fallen

and our grandchildren

speak a different tongue

this morning my namesake

drank tea with me

that smile

she was almost you

Sina’s a good girl

she goes to church

visits me every Christmas

does what she’s told

I want her to stay

but her heart’s elsewhere

tomorrow she goes home

to Niu Sila

Statement

This poem is about the diasporic identity conundrum.  'Who/what are you and where do you belong?'  Sina is me in many ways but she is also representative of women who are connected to the Samoan 'homeland' but have formed emotional connections to the 'new land' and NEWzeaLAND has become the destination of their internal homing compass. I honestly feel more comfortable living in Aotearoa. This generates a cascade of emotions such as grief, guilt, longing, regret, relief, confusion, and acceptance.  I didn't go to Samoa every Christmas because my grandparents lived with us anything between 3-9 months a year in Niu Sila - especially when they were older and needed medical intervention. My mother was the only daughter (she has 5 brothers) and she emigrated to Nui Sila during the 1950s when she was 19. I'm the eldest grandchild as well as the eldest granddaughter and felt the pressure of what this meant in terms of preserving family stories and values  - but carved my own path.....

My Samoan grandmother had trouble pronouncing the ‘sh’ phoneme.  She always called me Seer-ree.  I decided in 2006 that I would change my name to ‘Serie’as a way of keeping her close to me because I really missed her when she died.

Published  in Tapa Talk, Mauri Ola, Writing the Pacific.

Nautilus Woman

I’m aware of sweat running

the channel between heart and belly

spreading into the waistband

of my too tight skirt

sticking to the clammy space

where a  babe could be growing

and into this thought

a woman in a terracotta

Mother Hubbard dress

saunters and bonjours me

she’s as beautiful as a deep-sea nautilus

a mollusc with an ivory shell adorned

with reddish-brown stripes on the outside

and mother-of-pearl on the inside

she’s wrapped a scarf about her head

frizzy black strands of petulant hair escape

defiant in the heat they will not lie down

smooth with sweat against her scalp

her loose-fitting dress is striped with

pearly lace between the shoulder blades

and on the flared sleeves beneath her elbows

she moves slowly in the heat

hands rubbing her swollen belly

and I wonder if my body

ripening with years

can house another child

survive another birthing

the woman is near her time

I can feel the drag of her babe’s head

positioned to move from buoyancy

into its mother’s arms

we smile at each other

lightly brush fingers

as she glides by

Statement

I wrote this poem in the Loyalty Islands.  It was so hot and there are no streams or rivers because the rain sinks through the coral into underground caverns.  I was sitting on a beautiful beach and connected without a common verbal language to this beautiful, heavily pregnant woman. 

Published in Tapa Talk, Maui Ola, Trout 12.

Connections

on Sunday the priest said teu le va

 make presentable the distance

between you and the other

there’s no such thing as empty space

just distances between things

made meaningful by fine lines

connecting designs and beings

in the seen and unseen worlds

distances can be shortened

made intimate or dangerous

or lengthened

until the connection weakens

finally withers away

*****

on Monday the chief evicted

the diving school from the island

said sailboats and men in black suits

upset ancestors visiting the bay

the instructor packed his gear

waved goodbye with two fingers

the chief smiled

lit a match

*****

on Tuesday I swam with a green turtle

and an old man riding an iron bike

stopped to greet me

we shook hands

not a city-corporate shake

just a gentle slipping

of fingertips over palms

like origami cranes

delicately pressing

their bills together

a hongi of sorts

*****

on Wednesday we drove inland

past columns of limestone

where birds huddle in nooks

overgrown by banyan roots

banyans start as flimsy seeds

dropped from heaven

onto unsuspecting hosts

their roots twirl down

strangling flourishing trees

as they grope for the ground

we stopped at one banyan

more majestic than others

a grizzly man in track pants

materialised at our side

can we take photos?

he smiled slowly

told us he was the guardian

of the cyclone stone

hidden at the base of the tree

hands on hips

he posed for the camera

we took three pictures

none of them turned out

****

on Thursday children playing hide ’n’ seek

dashed out of their hidey holes

to watch me walk by

I’m the only blue-eyed woman

with frizzy hair on this island

they lifted sunglasses off  my nose

peered at me up close

then ran away to spy safely

as I fended off the hungry village dogs

it was a test of sorts

they emerged when the last mongrel

had yelped and slunk away

they’d no idea

I could kick and throw stones

before I could walk

****

on Friday time melted

on a beach interrupting cliffs

where feral donkeys meander

past magical caverns

sharks enter with moonbeams

and leave as beautiful people

with decorative trailing braids

on the ridge of this world

a warrior ran with his club

towards the towering cliffs

and the chasm that breaks them

the enemy closed in

their breath humming

like coconut-leaf whizzers

he jumped the impossible breach

invocations and ancestors buoyed him up

bridged him to the other side

while beneath the cliffs

waves slapped rocks

senseless

*****

today is Saturday

I’ve bought a new siapo

for the overcrowded living room

it’s harmonious

the land, sea and sky are in accord

the motifs complement each other

everything’s connected

which reminds me

I’m still trying to measure

the distance of our connection

have even thought of painting

my body onto yours

it’ll fit

we could do it in the backyard

under the banana trees

where roosters flap their wings

and puff out their chests

for the squawking hens

who scratch in the dirt with chicks

they peck to keep in order

huh?

*hongi – the exchange of greetings between two people, the pressing of noses together, the exchange of breath (Maori)

Statement

The Samoan concept of ‘teu le va’ enables us to understanding our relationship to people and places and deities and how we are connected to everything in the visible and invisible worlds.  I wrote the poem during my time in the Loyalty Islands where I explored both visible and invisible worlds.

Published in Tapa Talk, Niu Voices: Contemporary Pacific Fiction 1 (Huia: 2006).

Mary Johnson via the SS Ocean Mail

Mary migrated with a liquefaction remedy

from a Shetland croft to a whare in Karamea

where she grew into a midwife

who grated potatoes onto muslin strips

then baked them on rickety window ledges

until the water-logged pulp dried

into a powder fit for dusting sores

Mary could walk and talk and knit socks

with four needles and collect things to slip

inside her apron pouch without missing a step

she pocketed all sorts of treasures

wild berries, flowers, nuts and fruit

tufts of wool stranded on thistles

plants and lichen to dye spun rolags 

Fair Isle knitting patterns and faerie tales

 when your name’s Mary you can perform miracles

like birthing two of your fourteen bairns alone

in the bush on your knees beside a blanket

or burying a bairn taken by worm fever

in the cold earth with a broken heart

Statement

I wrote this poem for Mary McHarrie (nee Johnson), one of my great grandmother’s who was a migrant from the Shetland Isles. My grandmother was her 13^th child and both women were incredibly strong in their own way.  When I was a child my grandmother used to pick daisies and make faerie rings with me and tell me family stories and the world of the 1800s was as real as yesterday.

Published in  JAAM.

Papa de los pobres (Potatoes of the poor) 

it’s the morning after Anzac Day

medals and politics have been aired

with bugles, haka and stylised poppies

marking distant shores, valour and loss

but there’s still battles to be had in the suburbs

where the recession’s struck a hunched-backed woman

in jandals, track pants and a budget-rack floral parka

she’s braked a pushchair choka with chokos

on the pavement outside Foodtown

when I close in on her I see she’s fine-boned

that her misshapen back is actually a papoose

slung beneath a mantle of synthetic flowers

and there’s bald patches around the hood

where tiny fists have plucked nylon fur

to suck for warmth in the Autumn wind

the woman holds a shard of corrugated card

her smile as shaky as the crayoned lettering

$1 a chocko

her face is gentle

undemanding

but I have chokos galore at home

their wrinkled, prickly flesh a green chorus

with feijoas and fresh figs in a pottery bowl

and I need the four gold coins for the special toothpaste

guaranteed to soothe receded gums and nerves

the papoose whimpers

I pluck two fruit from the sagging canvas shelf

extract gold coins from my purse

smile then wince when the wind targets my mouth

this is for the chokos

and these are for your child

she shakes her head

no no

takes one coin

presses the others back into my palm

I mean well but I’ve got it wrong

she lifts her chin

I left my island for a better life

another woman approaches

scoops up chokos

papa de los pobres! she exclaims

she sees a woman with empty cupboards

who’s taken to the streets to change things

stands to attention

salutes the urban activist

Statement

I wrote this poem one ANZAC Day after I’d been to my local supermarket.  I was moved by this woman’s story and what she represents and what she taught me about how several people can perceive the same event/sight in different ways.

Published in Landfall 218.

The following 3 poems are performance poems and part of my 'Disrupted Narrative' series.

The Flying fox and Che Guevera

I cared for my children like a flying fox

kept them safe under my wings

when they were small and hesitant

tipped paracetamol and antibiotics

down persistently inflamed throats

during endless nights of earaches

gassed them with ventolin cocktails

when asthma stole their breath

had broken bones reset and a tongue bitten off

from a faulty landing on a trampoline

reattached in a theatre without movies

then regretted it

when that fiapoko mouth

started up again

and we’ve laughed at dinosaurs and cartoons

at Grandma crooning Buffalo Soldier

at Pa’s jokes and the bills that kept arriving

for the ever-declining cashflow card

then there were the retreads that outlived cars

and the unexpected appearance of food

in our sprayed and wiped out cupboards

hmmm, there’s so much to think about

sitting barefoot in church at Nakety

behind the vividly turbaned mamas

paying their respects to Eloi Machoro

a South Pacific Che Guevara

a dead son of this island

that siege and the photo of Machoro

smashing a ballot box with an axe

immortalised him beyond the bullets

that felled a man into a crimson pool

my sons are still learning the difference

between people’s needs and wants

and how to match actions with words

but I remember

they wore their Che Guevera T-shirts

until they fell off their backs

*fiapoko – a cheeky person, a know-it-all

Every Bus Stop Tells a Story

on this island of opencast mines

decapitated hills stretch endlessly

and bus stops are graphic novels

their pages communally authored

on concrete blocks and iron sheets

assembled to showcase legends

Bob Marley  Che Guevera  Eloi Machoro

shelter with travellers from the tropical sun

and the bleeding earth when it rains

rest in peace brothers

you’re not forgotten

for you’re remembered by the rivers

where bamboo grows exceptionally tall

resembling flocks of animated parrots

with trailing emerald feathers

as well as the blackwood trees and rocks

that witnessed valleys rise up for freedom

and your names are sung by young women

coaxing horses over flooded bridges

youths and dogs panting in their wake

and spoken by elders kindling fires

with stories of your deeds

for on this colonised island

threads from disrupted narratives

weave themselves underground

like sunken streams in a desert

emerging as an oasis of counter-stories

to challenge the master narrative

Hearts and Sensitive Grass

our hearts are carefully accommodated

the left lung being smaller than the right

so our passions and woes can harbour

our blood beat thrr-thrump thrr-thrump

but shifting the universe of our mind

a paltry three hand spans to our heart

seems a journey too distant for most

even on this blatantly colonised island

where migrants have traversed oceans

and sensitive grass flourishes with passion fruit

when my mother was a school girl

she spoke her mother-tongue in class

was sent outside into the blazing sun

to weed sensitive grass as punishment

the thorns ripped her tender flesh

bestowed nettle rash and shame

and droplets of blood destined for her heart

nourished the parched field instead

oh she learned her lesson well

for when I was small she said

the way forward’s English

that’s your father’s lingo

we live in Niu Sila

don’t speak my lingo

I don’t want you to be hurt

but when I was older

and she was stronger

she changed her mind

insisted I learn her lingo

drove me for miles after school

to language and culture classes

but by then my tongue had set

into a concrete kiwi accent

everyone laughed when I spoke her lingo

until the world I was tentatively building

collapsed under layers of well-aimed scorn

now I crouch under the blazing sun

prod sensitive grass with sticks and fingers

blow on it like gentle and harsh winds

estimate how much force it takes for a frond

to fold/unfold in response to the outside world

create strategies for dealing with thorns

calculate the distance I’ll need to travel

in order to retrieve and free my stifled tongue!

Statement for 'Disrupted Narrative' poems

I wrote these poems while I was moving around and living in various villages on the main island of Kanaky (New Caledonia).  I was appalled by the devastation of miles and miles of land due to open cast mining activities and loved the way that the people of the north painted their own stories onto bus stops.  Driving along a long stretch of road was like being immersed in a story that celebrated indigenous myths and contemporary heroes and voiced anger and sadness at the ongoing colonisation process.  I went into some of the hill tribe villages and visited battle and grave sites for fallen indigenous freedom fighters – who were labelled terrorists by the French administration.  In 'Hearts and Sensitive Grass' I draw upon one of my mother’s experiences of colonial rule (New Zealand administered Western Samoa until it became independent in 1962) and how it’s affected my life many decades later.

These poems were performed as part of the Polynation performance at the Brisbane Poetry Festival (BMP) and the  Going West Festival 2008,  and without the troupe as various poetry readings, including the Auckland Fringe Festival 2013 and Pasifika Stars at the Auckland Central Library.

Selections from 'Disrupted Narratives' have been published in Making Settler Colonial Space: Perspectives on Race, Place and Identity (Palgrave Macmillan: 2010), Home & Away 2010 All together Now: A Digital Bridge for Auckland and Sydney.