Vernice Wineera

Vernice Wineera Pere (1 December 1938 – 31 July 2024) was a New Zealand Hawaiian poet, editor and educator. Wineera lived in Hawaii from 1960, and served as vice-president of the Polynesian Cultural Center from 1980 to 1992 and as director of the Pacific Institute at Brigham Young University–Hawaii (where she also taught creative writing and Pacific studies) from 1992 to 2008. In 1978 she was the first Māori woman to publish a poetry collection.

Early life, education and family Wineera was born in Wellington in 1938, and grew up at Takapūwāhia. She had Māori, English and French ancestors, Wineera and Pere (who died in 2012) had seven children together. In 1994 she graduated with a master's degree in arts from the University of Hawaiʻi, followed by earning her PhD in American studies in 2000. Alice Te Punga Somerville describes the collection as "packed full of rich, lively, compelling poetry", In 1979 she edited the anthology Ka Poʻe o Laʻie, which collected poetry by Lāʻie people. Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English (2010, edited by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan), She has had poetry published in New Zealand literary magazines Te Ao Hou and Marae.

Selected works Mahanga: Pacific Poems (poetry collection, BYU–Hawaii, 1978) Editor of Ka Poʻe o Laʻie (anthology, Polynesian Cultural Center, 1979) Into the Luminous Tide: Pacific Poems (poetry collection, BYU–Hawaii, 2009)