Traditional Māori poetry was always sung or chanted, musical rhythms rather than linguistic devices served to distinguish it from

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the ...

. There is a large store of traditional chants and songs. Rhyme or

assonance Assonance is a resemblance in the sounds of words/syllables either between their vowels (e.g., ''meat, bean'') or between their consonants (e.g., ''keep, cape''). However, assonance between consonants is generally called ''consonance'' in America ...

were not devices used by the

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

; only when a given text is sung or chanted will the

metre The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...

become apparent. The lines are indicated by features of the

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

. The language of

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

tends to differ stylistically from prose. Typical features of

poetic diction Poetic diction is the term used to refer to the linguistic style, the vocabulary, and the metaphors used in the writing of poetry. In the Western tradition, all these elements were thought of as properly different in poetry and prose up to the time ...

are the use of synonyms or contrastive opposites, and the repetition of key words. As with poetry in other languages: "Archaic words are common, including many which have lost any specific meaning and acquired a religious mystique. Abbreviated, sometimes cryptic utterances and the use of certain grammatical constructions not found in prose are also common" (Biggs 1966:447–448).

Modern Māori poets

* Arapera Blank * Rangi Faith *

Rowley Habib Rowley Habib (24 April 1933 – 3 April 2016), also known as Rore Hapipi, was a New Zealand poet, playwright, and writer of short stories and television scripts. Biography Of Lebanese and Māori descent, Habib identified with the Ngāti Tūw ...

* Hirini Melbourne *

Jacquie Sturm Jacqueline Cecilia Sturm (born Te Kare Papuni, also known as Jacquie Baxter; 17 May 1927 – 30 December 2009) was a New Zealand poet, short story writer and librarian. She was one of the first Māori women to complete an undergraduate universi ...

* Robert Sullivan * Hone Tūwhare *

Tayi Tibble Tayi Tibble (born 1995) is a New Zealand poet. Her poetry reflects Māori culture and her own family history. Her first collection of poetry, ''Poūkahangatus'' (2018), received the Jessie Mackay Prize for Poetry at the 2019 Ockham New Zealand B ...

References

Bibliography

*B.G. Biggs,
Maori Myths and Traditions
in A. H. McLintock (editor), ''

Encyclopaedia of New Zealand ''An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand'' is an official encyclopaedia about New Zealand, published in three volumes by the New Zealand Government in 1966. Edited by Alexander Hare McLintock, the parliamentary historian, assisted by two others, the e ...

'', 3 Volumes. (Government Printer: Wellington), 1966, II:447–454. Poetry, Maori New Zealand poetry Poetry by language Māori language {{poetry-stub