Every year, in honour of Allen Curnow, a generous friend of the festival, Going West invites an established New Zealand poet to read. Curnow once wrote that by ‘simply sailing in a new direction you could enlarge the world’; and this year we invite Apirana Taylor (Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau ā Apanui, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Pākehā) to respond to our theme Cutting Through.

Apirana Taylor, Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau ā Apanui, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Pākehā, is a nationally and internationally published Māori poet, storyteller, playwright, novelist, actor, painter and musician. He was 1996 Writer in Residence at Massey University, and 2002 Writer in Residence at Canterbury University. His poetry and short stories are studied in secondary schools (for NCEA Levels 1 and 2) polytechnics and universities, and have been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Russian and French. He reads his work at schools, tertiary institutions, universities, prisons and libraries throughout the year