Hone Tuwhare

Hone Peneamine Anatipa Te Pona Tuwhare (1922 –2008) was a noted Māori New Zealand poet. He is closely associated with The Catlins in the Southland region of New Zealand, where he lived for the latter part of his life.

Tuwhare during his service with J-Force in Japan, post WW2

Starting in 1939, Tuwhare, encouraged by fellow poet R.A.K. Mason, began to write while working as an apprentice at the Otahuhu Railway Workshops.

In 1956, Tuwhare started writing seriously after resigning from a local branch of the Communist party. His first, and arguably best-known work, No Ordinary Sun, was published in 1964 to widespread acclaim and subsequently reprinted ten times over the next 30 years, becoming one of the most widely read individual collections of poetry in New Zealand history.

When Tuwhare's poems first began to appear in the late 1950s and early 1960s they were recognised as a new departure in New Zealand poetry, cutting across the debates and divisions between the 1930s and post-war generations. Much of the works' originality was the result of their distinctly Māori perspective.