Originally commissioned as the libretto for a work by composer John Psathas for the 50th birthday celebration of the Orpheus Choir, this book-length poem offers fresh perspectives on the familiar story of Cook's Pacific explorations. Employing a broad bicultural approach to reinterpret the Orpheus myth for the South Pacific, Sullivan uses a wide range of styles—from 18th-century dialogue to 21st-century hip hop cadences—to create a revisionist Cook who must accept responsibility for the da...

Love and the rearticulation of New Zealand mythology from a Polynesian perspective are the central themes of this new collection of Hawaii-based Maori poetry. The poems open up two cultural traditions—a Polynesian oral tradition and a written European tradition—with subjects that range from ancient myths to the complexity and moral ambiguity of the modern world. Poetry lovers will find pleasure in the poems' conceptual energy, constantly yielding surprises and unexpected and imaginative an...

Tunui | Comet is the first collection in more than a decade by one of our most important living Maori poets. Rolling easily between korero Maori and the canonical traditions of English-language poetry, through karakia and powhiri, treaty training and decolonisation wikis, Robert Sullivan takes readers on a marvellous poetic hikoi. Guided by Maui and Tawhirimatea, Moana Jackson and Freddie Mercury, we walk from K'Rd council flats to Kaka Point, finding ourselves and our ancestors along the ...

Americans tend to think of the Revolution as a Massachusetts-based event orchestrated by Virginians, but in fact the war took place mostly in the Middle Colonies—in New York and New Jersey and the parts of Pennsylvania that on a clear day you can almost see from the Empire State Building. In My American Revolution, Robert Sullivan delves into this first Middle America, digging for a glorious, heroic part of the past in the urban, suburban, and sometimes even rural landscape of tod...

A poetic journey through the Māori lunar calendar.Robert Sullivan's Hopurangi—Songcatcher is a vibrant collection of poems inspired by the Maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar. Through vivid imagery and deep cultural understanding, Sullivan explores themes of identity, whakapapa (genealogy), and connection to the natural world.This collection invites readers to reflect on their own place in the world, offering moments of healing, wonder, and a rene...

Surprisingly funny and compulsively readable, Rats is an unlikely account of a year spent in a garbage-strewn alley in lower Manhattan. Sullivan spends the year with a notebook and night-vision goggles, hunting for fabled rat-kings, trapping a rat of his own, and trying (and failing) to conquer his own fear of rats. He meets the exterminators, garbage men and civic activists who play their part in the centuries-old war between human city-dweller and wild city rat. He travels to a ...

Published on the cusp of the new millennium, Maori poet Robert Sullivan's third book of poems, Star Waka, explores themes of journeying and navigation, moving back and forth in time and focus to confront colonisation, contemporary political issues and personal questions of family and identity. It came with some strings attached: each poem had to feature either a star, a waka (canoe) or the ocean. Within these parameters, and in 2001 lines, Sullivan creates 100 poems that, he says,...

Children the world over have believed in the legend of Santa Claus forever—until told differently. Now, there is no reason to think otherwise! Robert Sullivan, a senior editor at Life magazine, has diligently compiled documentation to prove that Santa and flying reindeer are anything but myths and that Santa Claus does, in fact, make his trek around the globe each Christmas Eve. With the expertise of some of the world's most renowned Arctic experts, wildlife biologists, historians...

One of The New Yorker's best books of the year so far | A Kirkus Reviews Best Nature Book of 2024“Singular . . . Virtuosic . . . Double Exposure is the best book I’ve read about America . . . in many, many years.” —Corey Seymour, Vogue (a best book of 2024)**“Extraordinary . . . A transformative experience for the reader.” —Lucy Sante“A large-hearted, wide-angled book . . . I couldn't put it down....

Just five miles west of New York City, the Meadowlands is an untamed, vilified, half-developed and smelly tract of swampland. It is home to rare birds and missing bodies, tranquil marshes and a major sports arena, burning garbage dumps and corporate headquarters, the remains of the original Penn Station and possibly those of more than one mafioso. Acclaimed writer Robert Sullivan proves himself to be the perfect explorer, historian and archaeologist for this fragile yet amazingly resilient...

A Jersey Boys book. A Jersey Boys story. A Broadway memoir. A how-to guide to making it on Broadway. Everyone's heard of JERSEY BOYS. Thirteen million people have seen the show, totaling more than $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. The cast members have performed on Oprah , the Today show, Dancing with the Stars, and at the Emmy Awards. Their recording has gone Platinum, selling more than a million copies in the United States alone. There are six companies performing it around the world...

Valuable Partnerships: Cooperation, Innovation, and the Future of Municipal Texas bridges rich scholarship and practical application to produce an important reference for local government scholars and practitioners alike by covering the dynamic approaches altering how Texas municipalities operate. Valuable Partnerships investigates the efficacy of the American fragmented municipal model comprised of 89,000 jurisdictions. Critics consistently criticize this decentralized model while arguing...