Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi and Kāi Tahu) has won awards for his poetry, editing, and writing for children, including the 2022 Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for a distinguished contribution to New Zealand poetry, Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Hawai’i, the Montana New Zealand Book Award for co-editing Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English, the Māori Literature Award for co-editing Puna Wai Kōrero: An Anthology of Māori Poetry in English, and the New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year for Weaving Earth and Sky, a retelling of Māori myths and legends.
Tunui Comet is his eighth collection of poetry. His book Star Waka, for which he earned a Literary Fellowship at the University of Auckland, has been reprinted many times. He is a great fan of all kinds of decolonisation. His scholarly work is published in Routledge India’s Indigeneity series, thePrinceton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, The New Zealand Journal of Literature, Landfall, Biography, and Ka Mate Ka Ora. He specialises in Māori and Pacific poetics and wayfinding as a phenomenological, close reading method. Before joining Massey University, he worked for a time as a research librarian at the University of Auckland, Manukau Institute of Technology’s Deputy Chief Executive (Māori), Director of Creative Writing at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, and led Manukau Institute of Technology’s School of Creative Writing . He served on the Literature Advisory Committee of Creative New Zealand, Te Hā Māori Writers’ Committee, Auckland Writers Festival Board, UNESCO New Zealand’s Culture Subcommittee, the board of the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre, and convened the poetry panel for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. He has been a judge for the Brisbane Poetry Festival, and the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Prize.
He belongs to the Puketeraki Marae of Ngāi Tahu in Otago (Hikaroroa te mauka, Waikouaiti te awa, Āraiteuru te waka), and the Kāretu Marae of Ngāti Manu in the Bay of Islands (Puketohunoa te maunga, Taumarere te awa, Ngātokimatawhaorua te waka). He has a daughter and two sons who bring him great joy.