Some helpful models of grief / Hana Pera Aoake

Poems by Hana Pera Aoake
Illustrations by Priscilla Rose Howe

A composite chronicle of various loves—desired, lost, or never realised—and their corresponding joys and griefs against the backdrops of contemporary art and late capitalism. These poems radiate with Aoake’s characteristic force, tenderness, intelligence, and humour, often all within the very same breath. The personal is the political is the personal.

Published June 2025
Softcover, 108 pages
ISBN 9781067072704

$30.00

Praise

Everything Hana writes has a pulse. It could be moss, Britney or Plato but it sings a song that is nervous, in the body and out of the body. You’d be a fool not to take in all of Hana’s grins.
—Talia Marshall

Hana’s writing is daring, elliptical, charismatic and above all, interesting. The kind of writer where it doesn’t matter what the subject is, you know you are always in good company.
—Hera Lindsay Bird

He haerenga whakatautau, he haerenga atamai, he haerenga ngoto. Sometimes difficile, always différente, Some helpful models of grief is an unique, polymorphous panorama of pāmamae that will be sure to beguile any reader.
—Vaughan Rapatahana

Hana has always had a way of using words to weave together complex stories and narratives. The words and pieces found throughout this collection are tender and beautiful.
—Khadro Mohamed

The Author

Hana Pera Aoake

(Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Hinerangi, Tainui/Waikato) Artist, poet, writer, and curator; author of A bathful of kawakawa and hot water (Compound Press, 2020) and Blame it on the rain (No More Poetry, 2025). Hana lives in Kawerau in the shadow of Pūtauaki maunga, and is a PhD candidate at Auckland University of Technology.

Press

Featured by Hera Lindsay Bird in ‘The Friday Poem’ on The Spinoff

Interview with Carin Smeaton on Heritage et AL blog from Auckland Libraries

Some helpful models of grief / Hana Pera Aoake

Praise

Everything Hana writes has a pulse. It could be moss, Britney or Plato but it sings a song that is nervous, in the body and out of the body. You’d be a fool not to take in all of Hana’s grins.—Talia Marshall

Hana’s writing is daring, elliptical, charismatic and above all, interesting. The kind of writer where it doesn’t matter what the subject is, you know you are always in good company.—Hera Lindsay Bird

He haerenga whakatautau, he haerenga atamai, he haerenga ngoto. Sometimes difficile, always différente, Some helpful models of grief is an unique, polymorphous panorama of pāmamae that will be sure to beguile any reader.—Vaughan Rapatahana

Hana has always had a way of using words to weave together complex stories and narratives. The words and pieces found throughout this collection are tender and beautiful.—Khadro Mohamed

The Author

Hana Pera Aoake

Press

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Everything Hana writes has a pulse. It could be moss, Britney or Plato but it sings a song that is nervous, in the body and out of the body. You’d be a fool not to take in all of Hana’s grins.
—Talia Marshall

Hana’s writing is daring, elliptical, charismatic and above all, interesting. The kind of writer where it doesn’t matter what the subject is, you know you are always in good company.
—Hera Lindsay Bird

He haerenga whakatautau, he haerenga atamai, he haerenga ngoto. Sometimes difficile, always différente, Some helpful models of grief is an unique, polymorphous panorama of pāmamae that will be sure to beguile any reader.
—Vaughan Rapatahana

Hana has always had a way of using words to weave together complex stories and narratives. The words and pieces found throughout this collection are tender and beautiful.
—Khadro Mohamed