Ko Te Pakeha Te Teina: Baxter's Cross-Cultural Poetry‪.‬

What to do with Hemi? Like it or not, Baxter remains, like a battered beacon, deeply anchored in the midst of the muddy stream of New Zealand poetry, still 'issuing noisy instructions.' (1) While his is a voice doubtless monotonous and overbearing in its pronouncements at times, the fact that much of Baxter's later verse is increasingly cross-cultural in character is surely worth more than a cursory hearing, given all that has transpired in the way of cultural relations over the last three decades. Intriguing then--isturbing even--to discover that thorough consideration of Baxter's engagement in his poetry with te ao Maori is conspicuous by its near absence. As a result, while the Baxter oeuvre continues to be well thumbed for its literary, and, more recently, its theological profundities, (2) the potential of Baxter's engagement to inform a radical understanding of Pakeha identity has not been fully appreciated.