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 life. Early years Tūwhare was born in Kokewai, Northland, into the Ngāpuhi tribe (hapu Ngati Korokoro, Ngati Tautahi, Te Popoto, Uri-o-hau). Following the death of his mother, his family shifted to Auckland, where Hone attended primary schools in Avondale, Mangere and Ponsonby. He apprenticed as a boilermaker with the New Zealand Railways and took night classes in Mathematics, Trade Drawing and Trade Theory at Seddon Memorial Technical College (1939–41) and Otahuhu College (1941). Tūwhare spoke Māori until he was about 9, and his father, an accomplished orator and storyteller, encouraged his son's interest in the written and spoken word, especially in the rhythms and imagery of the Old Testament. Poetry career Starting in 1939, Tūwhare, encouraged by fellow poet R.A.K. Mason, began to write while working as an apprentice at the Otahuhu Railway Workshops. In 1956, Tūwhare started writing seriously after resigning from a local branch of the Communist party. His first, and arguably best known work, No Ordinary Sun, was published in 1964 to widespread acclaim and subsequently reprinted ten times over the next 30 years, becoming one of the most widely read individual collections of poetry in New Zealand history. When Tūwhare's poems first began to appear in the late 1950s and early 1960s they were recognised as a new departure in New Zealand poetry, cutting across the debates and divisions between the 1930s and post-war generations. Much of the works' originality was the result of their distinctly Māori perspective. The poems were marked by their tonal variety, the naturalness with which they could move between formal and informal registers, between humour and pathos, intimacy and controlled anger and, especially, in their assumption of easy vernacular familiarity with New Zealand readers. During the 1970s Tūwhare became involved in Māori cultural and political initiatives. This same era also saw his international reputation grow, with invitations to visit both China and Germany, which, among other opportunities, lead to the publication of Was wirklicher ist als Sterben in 1985. While his earlier poems were kept in print, new work was constantly produced. Tūwhare's play, "In the Wilderness Without a Hat", was published in 1991. Three further collections of