Arihia Latham
Arihia Latham (1980 –) is a writer, poet, facilitator, cultural and sustainability advisor, rongoā Māori practitioner, and educator living in Te Whanganui a Tara. She is of Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha, and Pākehā descent and a mother of three. Arihia has held a lifelong interest in medicine, and credits experts including Mihipeka Edwards, Tiahuia Gray and Rakāto Te Rangiita for mentoring her during her youth. She pursued a university education in complementary medicine at Charles Sturt University in Australia, graduating with a Bachelor of Health Science in 2002.
Since 2010, Arihia has been involved in education and sustainability as the rongoā Māori lecturer for the University of Otago and a facilitator and Māori advisor for organisations such as Enviroschools and the Toimata Foundation. A freelance writer and columnist since 2008, Arihia has additionally written multiple articles on the arts, culture, sustainability, and social justice for media organisations such as The Post, The Pantograph Punch, The Spinoff, Verb Wellington, and more. In 2026 she completed her MA through the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington.
Arihia began her writer career in 2007 with the short story “Fly Away Home,” which was published by Huia Press as part of the Pikihuia Awards and recorded for RNZ. She was again published by Huia Press in 2013, when her novel extract for Ahi Kā was highly commended in the 2013 Pikihuia Awards’ Best Novel Extract Written in English category. Arihia continues to write extensively, both fiction and poetry. Since 2007, she has composed and performed numerous poems, many of which have been featured in collections such as Ōrongohau Best New Zealand poems (2023), Te Awa o Kupu (Penguin Random House NZ) Rapture (AUP), Koe (Otago University Press, 2024), and Huia short story collections, or in RNZ, Landfall, Oranui and Verb journals, Te Whare Hera, and more.
Her long-awaited debut poetry collection, Birdspeak, was published by Anahera Press in 2023. Tru Paraha wrote in the Aotearoa NZ Review of Books that this collection evokes what Carl Te Hira Mika describes as "worlded perception”, where language presents visible and invisible realities embedded in Māori poetics. "A reader may encounter a hiddenness intrinsic to each poem ... beyond customary semantics and textual analysis." Tru continues, "This collection includes visceral portraits, reimagined pūrākau, and a pātaka of emotional memory. The poet circumnavigates the atua zone and transcultural dissonance with craft, often drawing from a volatile biography."
In June 2024, Arihia was the Writer in Residence at Te Whare Hēra. This was to complete the final production phase with her team as they created the poetic film Takaroa for Mana Moana, where it was displayed on a water-screen in Whairepo Lagoon.
According to Te Whare Hēra, Takaroa talks about “the Kāi Tahu creation story of Takaroa the atua of the sea being the first love of the earth mother Papatūānuku through the lens of climate change and poetry”. Later in 2024, Takaroa won Best NZ Film at the Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival and was screened at the Lighthouse Cinema.
Arihia is active and engaged within the literary community, presenting, performing, and facilitating at numerous festivals and events, including Verb Festival, NZ Festival of the Arts, WORD Christchurch, Nelson Arts Festival, Te Hā, and the Auckland Writers Festival. In 2024, she participated in the first annual NZSA Kaituhi Māori Mentorship Programme, as a writing mentor.
In 2025, she joined Read NZ Te Pou Muramura’s Writers in Schools programme as part of the Pōkai Tuhi initiative, where she continues to deliver interesting and engaging lectures and workshops to schools across Aotearoa.
