Tung is the keenly anticipated debut collection from award-winning Otepoti-Dunedin poet, Robyn Maree Pickens. Earth-centred and life-affirming, these poems offer sustenance and repair to a planet in the grips of a socio-ecological crisis.
Pickens is an eco-pioneer of words, attuned to the fine murmurings of the earth and to the louder sound and content of human languages (English, Spanish, Japanese and Finnish). She finds and draws out the beauty in both. Hers is a unique response, linguistically rich and innovative, pushing at received notions, challenging the zeitgeist, alive with innovative typographic and sonic creativity.
Tung is not afraid of new shapes or new rhythms, orchestrating a gorgeous score that testifies to the shared relationship between the human and non-human worlds. Over the roar and the din, Robyn Maree Pickens creates her sound. And it sounds like hope.