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 f ...

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

Rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

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 Co ...

; 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 p ...

become apparent. The lines are indicated by features of the

music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...

. 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 ...

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 Arapera Hineira Blank (; 7 June 1932 – 30 July 2002) was a New Zealand poet, short-story writer and teacher. She wrote in both te reo Māori and English, and was one of the first Māori writers to be published in English. Her work focussed o ...

* 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 Tūwh ...

Hirini Melbourne Hirini (Sid) Melbourne (21 July 1949 – 6 January 2003) was a Māori composer, singer, university lecturer, poet and author who was notable for his contribution to the development of Māori music and the revival of Māori culture. He played tra ...

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 univers ...

* Robert Sullivan *

Hone Tūwhare Hone Peneamine Anatipa Te Pona Tūwhare (21 October 1922 – 16 January 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 l ...

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 Alexander Hare McLintock (14 April 1903 – 29 May 1968) was a New Zealand teacher, university lecturer, historian and artist. He edited and authored the three-volume ''Encyclopaedia of New Zealand'', published in 1966, his final and perhaps ...

(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 ...

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