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A selection of Selina Tusitala Marsh’s most beloved poems, set to music and performed by the poet herself.

‘She blows in like a song carried on a powerful current: a wild-haired woman, larger than life, carrying a tall carved stick. She loses things in that hair, she says; finds pens in there days after they went missing.’
— from ‘Never Piss Off a Poet’, The Guardian

Selina Tusitala Marsh is a celebrated poet and performer from Aotearoa New Zealand. Professor and poet laureate, a Pasifika woman who has performed for queens and presidents, Selina says ‘poetry is a way to tell our stories and make the invisible visible.’

This audiobook features the poet performing thirty-six of her most powerful poems, both occasional pieces and selections from the collections Fast Talking PI, Dark Sparring and Tightrope. In ‘Guys like Gaugin’ and ‘Kickboxing Cancer’, ‘Airport Road to Apia’ and ‘Fast Talking PI’, and many more, Selina brings whole new worlds to life.

All poems written and performed by Selina Tusitala Marsh; all music composed, produced and engineered by Tim Page.

Author

Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tuvaluan, English and French descent. She was the first Pacific Islander to graduate with a PhD in English from the University of Auckland and is now a professor of English specialising in Pasifika literature. The author of three award-winning poetry collections, Marsh represented Tuvalu at the London Olympics Poetry Parnassus event in 2012, and in 2016 she composed and performed for the Queen at Westminster Abbey in her role as Commonwealth Poet. She became New Zealand’s Poet Laureate in 2017. Her debut children’s book and memoir, Mophead: How Your Difference Makes a Difference, was awarded the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year at the 2020 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and was followed by the bestselling Mophead Tu: The Queen’s Poem and Wot Knot You Got? Mophead’s Guide to Life. Her work has been translated into Ukrainian, French and Spanish and has appeared in numerous forms live in schools, museums and parks, on billboards and in print and online literary journals.