Tayi Tibble

Tibble, Tayi (1995 - ) (Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui) is a poet and writer from Aotearoa New Zealand. Born in Wellington, Tayi grew up in Porirua and studied at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, graduating with a degree in history and a Masters in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2017.

In that same year, she received the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing for her work In a Fish Tank Filled with Pink Light, which went on to become her first collection, Poūkahangatus, which was published in 2018 by Te Herenga Waka Press (formerly Victoria University Press.)

In 2018 she read her poem "Hoki Mai" at an Anzac Day parade attended by 25,000 people in Wellington.

Poūkahangatus received the Jessie Mackay Prize for Poetry (the best first poetry book award) at the 2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Anahera Gildea, reviewing the collection for Landfall, described her poetry as a "'a new kind of beauty' that employs clever image piling techniques, layering of ideas, registers and codes, and enables her to emerge as a new voice requiring the reader to look at all things afresh", and the collection as "surely the breakthrough collection of the year, if not the decade".

Tibble's work has been published in Pantograph Punch, Metro, The Spinoff, The Wireless, Sport and the anthology The Friday Poem: 100 New Zealand Poems, edited by Steve Braunias.

In 2019 she joined Pantograph Punch as a staff writer.

Her poems were included in the show 'UPU' presented at the Silo Theatre as part of the Auckland Arts Festival in 2020, and at the Kia Mau Festival in 2021.

Tibble's second collection, Rangikura, was published in 2021 by Te Herenga Waka Press. The poems are based in part on her own experiences growing up as a young Māori woman.

In a review for Kete, Kiri Piahana Wong writes, "...as well as displaying her trademark “fiery,” incendiary and politically-aware qualities, Rangikura also reveals pain and vulnerability, and some sections of the book moved me not to awe or even anger, but to tears. To read Rangikura is to marvel at Tibble’s immense skill with words and cry for all that we still have to carry..."

In 2022, Rangikura was shortlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

In early 2022, Poūkahangatus was published in the United States by Knopf. An endorsement from former UK Poet Laureate Carol-Ann Duffy reads “...a fearless, young new voice with a huge range, from history to pop culture, with that sense of joy in its own word-music which immediately heralds the start of a poetic and political journey. Along with Hera Lindsay Bird, Tayi Tibble adds excitement to the new poetry coming from New Zealand.”

US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo writes “...Tayi Tibble is one of the most startling and original poets of her generation. Her poetry makes doorways of insight into turbulent history. At the end, there we are, all standing together, listening.”