Renewal
After a five-year hiatus, it’s back! And ‘Renewal’ is the theme.
The last issue was published during my year in the publishing class (I was one of the proofreaders for that issue). Coming back to it, I feel a wide circularity. I didn’t know it then, but the things I learnt that year became invaluable guiding pebbles in the following years, as I became a writer. This realisation makes me feel very grateful, and with clarity I see the intricate root system of this giant tree.
I’m pregnant, so I’ve been thinking about renewal anyway. Having a baby isn’t creating something new, but rather renewing ancient codes and cooking it differently. Renewal means to resume after an interruption or break, or to extend the validity. But it also implies circularity, because to make something new again, it must have become old or died in some way. It connotes the circle of life – repetition, rhythm, a beat. My partner is studying heke reo at the local wānanga. He tells me about the roots of Māori kupu – how hapū is both verb and noun, and means both pregnant and family group; whānau means family and to give birth.
Renewal also implies that there’s no real end to anything. I once heard someone ask this guy what he does at the gym, and the guy shrugged and said, ‘Pick things up, put them back down.’ It was a joke, I guess, but it seems to me an apt analogy for life. In 2019, we thought that would be the last journal ever, but now we can see that wasn’t the case. I’m glad it’s back, because this journal is special in that its kaupapa is about encouraging, uplifting and supporting writers who are current or past Whitireia students – and to renew something shows active belief in it and its potential to bloom.
The writing you will discover in this journal embraces and explores renewal with great vulnerability, creativity and generosity. Each piece has, at its heart, the strength and faith that propels a renewal into evolution – an unsquashable desire and need to carry on, to try again. In this collection of prose, poetry, short stories and personal essays, you will meet people getting familiar with old age, facing hard truths in hospitals and finding new ways of being. They grapple with memory, love and loss. They wow themselves and each other with their capacity to withstand, with their ability to face themselves in the mirror, to imagine new possibilities. There are surprising folds of courage and curiosity within these works.
Erin Donohue writes a touching poem for someone named Anya: ‘You have loved quietly / and fiercely and with your whole racing heart. It is hard to be open in a world / that only sees that as access.’ Olivia Aroha Giles writes food descriptions so well, it’ll make you hungry. In Aliya Bolla’s story, three young girls are having trouble throwing away Nan’s old couch – letting her go. How gorgeous and devastating are the banalities of suffering and grief? And how sweet the small triumphs? Maggie Rainey-Smith flexes: ‘…look here, this morning / I lifted five kilo in a bicep curl.’
There’s a lot of messed-up stuff happening in the world right now – the headlines being the genocide in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, civic unrest in New Caledonia and of course our own government trying to get rid of wetlands and Te Tiriti and fair rights for people who aren’t rich or able-bodied lol wtf!!! But amidst all of this chaos and frustration and hurt, we can see people standing up for what’s right – and there’s hope in that. If we think of renewal as eternal circles, it’s clear that consequences echo on, that short-term thinking can be detrimental, that we must be holistic in our approach to living. Collectively, we can feel something big looming on the horizon. A reawakening, a reviving, a refreshing. At the time of writing this, it’s nearing Matariki – a time for reflection, for making adjustments and goals. I think about what I will decide to continue picking up, and what to put down.
Ngā mihi nui to you, the reader, for spending time with this journal. Even small votes of favour, like clicking on a link, means something. Big thank yous also to Theresa and Odessa, for inviting me to guest edit, and to the group of students who no doubt worked crazy hours putting together this comeback edition: Mia, Rosie, Dana, Ronan, Always, Sophie, Annie and Grace. And to the writers who submitted their work – thank you for believing in the journal, for sharing your personal truths and for trusting us with your work. Cool that we were all a part of this renewal together! :-)
Ka pū te ruha, ka hao te rangatahi.
Joanna Cho
Guest editor 2024