Poetry is about a lot of things and meant to do many things. Most of the time powerful poetry evokes incredible images, whether they are emotional, physical or spiritual. But it is also built on something. Blocks. Words. Letters. Rhythms. Sounds. Those pieces come together to roll off your tongue. In honor of the rather important role words play in the whole enterprise, occasionally I will highlight one. Thus, I begin.

.Aotearoa.

This lovely word not only displays a neat kind of symmetry with its letter a’s, but is also of great international importance. Indeed, it is the name given to New Zealand by the Māori, the indigenous inhabitants of that land. I didn’t know of it until today, and that’s a shame.