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Ruby Poem 1

Image description

Ruby is a Māori woman with short brown hair wearing a tan-coloured dress and a pounamu around her neck. She sits in a chair in a blue and beige room. Photographer: Julie Zhu

Risk: A visual poem by Ruby Solly exploring the intricacies of indigenous, disabled pride

The poem explores whakapapa and the journey of trying to become a new parent as a queer, disabled wāhine Māori.

  • In response to our Deepen* kaupapa, Pelenakeke Brown commissioned poet and taonga puoro practitioner Ruby Solly to create a new poem. Risk, her new work, captured by videographer Julie Zhu explores whakapapa, the medical model for Māori wahine and the journey of trying to become a new parent as a queer, disabled wāhine Māori. Risk is the second work in our series. Watch and read Henrietta Bollinger’s poem Definition.

Risk: A visual poem by Ruby Solly exploring the intricacies of indigenous, disabled pride

  • Video description: Begins with Taonga puoro sounds, sounding like the wind through the trees. Different images and videos of Ruby looking out and directly to us. Footage of her studio, (reminiscent of a wharenui in its ‘A’ shape) and her house.  We see closeups of small details, the light coming through the roof, paintings of ancestors on her wall. Ruby playing taonga puoro, blowing into hue and other instruments. Painting kokowai on her hands, next to her ta moko. Washing this off. Ruby draws the phases of the moon on her blue studio wall, the light looks like they are underwater. Photos of her and her love Dan as they stand in their kitchen. Small details of a moko painted all dark brown. A hei tiki keeps time, tick tock, as it swings side to side. Poem ends with Ruby looking at us defiantly side on saying the last lines of the poem.

Image description: Ruby leans against a blue studio wall showing the phases of the moon; the light looks like she's underwater.

  • Ruby leans against a blue studio wall showing the phases of the moon; the light looks like she's underwater.
  • Risk
    Ruby Solly
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  • Risk

    I sit at home while the new nets go fishing
                                       repairing holes in my lining 
                                                   before they are worn through
                                                               By the sickness I chose
                                                                           To paint over the one I didn’t

    They tell me there is mould underneath this paint
    I see it wax and wane under the white
    A network of mycelium woven by nannies
    who loved us so much that they learnt to keep themselves still
    learnt to live in the white forest
    Birds and spiders and all, oh my, aue...

    These moths - these months - this lunar tick
                                                               Tock tick 
                      - Life expectancy of a Māori woman, 77, 
                      - Life expectancy of a woman with bipolar disorder 76, 75, 74,
                      - Chance of miscarriage with PCOS? 30 to 50%.. Chance of a relapse without baby 
                        curdling lithium within one year? 36%, 35, 34,  POSTSCRIPT, lithium only increases
                        chances of congenital heart defects by 1%, I was just told to give it up, because the
                        idea of a baby, is more important than me
                      -  30, 29... 28, 27 years old, by the time you hear this, I’ll be, 28..

    My love and I are turned into numbers on the white page,
    you need two people that add up to 1 to make a baby, 
    I am a one, the love of my life brings our number to two,
    not a match, go fish.

    The new nets are going fishing and we scour our whakapapa for te kore, 
     woven through in code
    Moko-puna, ourselves reflected in fresh water bursting, oh my, aue
    But to sip at that sadness would be to poison myself and others.

    What really came first, the beanstalk or the magic beans?
    I used to eat one per day, then two, then three 
    I’d sit and watch my hair thin, my paint dry
    My white scalp glacial beneath
    Saw the butterfly that lives in my throat shiver and wane

    I hear the music of everything weather i drink from the well or not
    The well still drinks from me
    Cave curved in the frontal lobe
    Where little mouse stores sweat meats and serotonin for  nuclear winter, 
               Oxygenated and un-oxygenated blood
               Racing through my  heart weakened 
                           Battery acid on the tongue
                                       Muzzle  held shut
                                                   Woof woof motherfucker
                                                               I can smell my grandmothers spit on your hands

    I lie in bed and think of my manic-depressive saints
    The woman who filled herself with rabbit pieces
    Just to birth them, 
    would she have done this if the cameras never came?
    Would she have turned their insertion to black and white Film noir, 
    purakau turned off and on again at the wall
                             Am I a risk to myself or others?
                             Am I a risk to myself?
                             Am I a risk ?
                             Am I?
                             Are we?

    Ah well, another day, another eighty cents of the dollar
    Another blood test
    Another medication compliance phone call
    Another woman calling my qualifications a symptom of mania
    Lies
    Because a Māori woman is more likely to be insane
    Than a doctor in their eyes
    Being a tohunga is out of the question
    Suppressed, e Hine
                                        Suppressed

Image description: A close-up of Ruby's hands painting a spotted egg with brown paint.

  • A close-up of Ruby's hands painting an egg with brown paint.
  •  

    Creative Team 

    Words: Ruby Solly 

    Featuring: Ruby Solly, Daniela Butterfield

    Curator/Producer: Pelenakeke Brown

    Camera/edit: Julie Zhu

    Sound: Lachlan Crane

    Music: Ruby Solly

    Project Coordinator: Beth Awatere 

    Made possible by support from The D*List and Auckland Pride

  • Pride Article Sponsor Banner (2)
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