Over 80 contemporary Maori writers explore a vast array of issues that challenge, stimulate and intrigue. With originality and insight, these poems and short stories express compassion, concern, curiousity, suffering and joy. Te Awa o Kupu is a companion volume to Nga Kupu Wero, which focuses on recent non-fiction. Together these two passionate and vibrant anthologies reveal that the irrepressible river of words flowing from Maori writers today shows us who and what we are.