Eight performance artists will gather in Christchurch later this month to honour New Zealand poet Hone Tuwhare, who spent the last 16 years of his life in the small South Otago township of Kaka Point.
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu will stage "Tribute to Hone Tuwhare" on Friday at 7pm.
The gathering will feature performances by eight New Zealand poets and performers including Apirana Taylor, Bernadette Hall, Brian Potiki, Ben Brown and Ciaran Fox.
Gallery public programmes officer Sarah Amazinnia said the performance would be a mixture of poetry readings, music and "eclectic" poetry performances.
A slide show featuring images of the poet would also screen during the gathering, which is part of the gallery's matariki celebrations.
Ms Amazinnia described Tuwhare as "a New Zealand icon poet" who pioneered a new style of New Zealand writing, bringing a distinct Maori voice to his work.
"When he passed away in January of this year, he left behind an unrivalled literary legacy for generations of artists to follow."
Children from the St Albans Primary School bilingual unit will perform a kapa haka and tribute at the start of the performance, which is to be held at the gallery's Philip Carter Family Auditorium.
The event is free.
Tuwhare received national acclaim with the publication of No Ordinary Sun in 1964 - the first collection of poetry in English by a Maori writer.
The University of Otago awarded him the Burns Fellowship in 1969 and 1974, he served as the Berlin writer in residence in 1985 and received the University of Auckland Literary Fellowship in 1991.
He became the second Te Mata Poet Laureate in 1999 and in 2003, received an Icon Award from the Arts Foundation New Zealand and a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in poetry.
Tuwhare lived in the small settlement of Kaka Point from 1992.
He died at Dunedin's Ross Home on January 16.
