Browsing by Author "Campbell, Patricia Fern"

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    One with the waters : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Creative Writing (MCW) at Massey University, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2024) Campbell, Patricia Fern
    Alice Oswald’s book-length poem Dart is a work of ecopoetry that layers the voices of the Dart River’s humans with the voice of the river itself. By using notions of duality and place from a Western perspective, Oswald’s poetry weaves a connection with the river and the surrounding Devon landscape that could be used as a spur to ecological responsibility. This metaphorical “river speaking as a human” analogy connects the reader with the river, while simultaneously drawing attention to the ecological concerns present within the human-river connection. Oswald’s perspective uses the voices of people and stories that have been told along the river to show the strong connection of people to the river, while keeping the stream as an object separate to the people. From a Te Ao Māori perspective, the connection to a river is implicit, due to its differing relational ontology, where the river is the person and vice-versa. The conflict between stream-as-object and stream-as-being is visible in the treatment of Wharemauku Stream, the waterway that stretches through Paraparaumu, a town in the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. This stream has been modified throughout the length of Pākehā occupation of Paraparaumu - carved and straightened to run down property boundaries and routed under roads, rather than allowed to spread where its waters naturally would, in the interests of keeping the land and roads nearby financially viable. This has impacted on the wairua and mana of both the stream and the mana whenua of this rohe. A Kaupapa Māori approach that incorporates poetry for educating and connecting local people with the stream could help to spur ecological responsibility while also increasing the wairua and mana of the stream and its people. A hybrid method, using Oswald’s method of speaking for the river using a human voice, but giving the river personhood and agency using a Te Ao Māori approach of whakapapa and kaitiakitanga, is the work of this thesis.