The Bond of Time

First published in a limited edition in 1985, John Pule’s epic love poem The Bond of Time is now available from Canterbury University Press. John Puhiatau Pule was just 21 years old living in Auckland when he wrote The Bond of Time, composed as a lyrical address by a lover to his beloved. The love that preoccupies the youthful poet in the poem is multifaceted; it combines the erotic and surreal with the earthy and the mundane, the classical with modern. Pule says that it is classic Pacific poetry written in English and is also about living in the Pacific and New Zealand. It is a love letter to a sea of islands, to Niue, and the entire Pacific. Poet Jeffrey Paparoa Holman has written the introduction for the new edition.