Gig Review: Little Prayers @ Lōemis Festival, Hall of Memories, Wellington – 13/06/2026

Out on the forecourt of Pukeahu National War Memorial, two lone skaters are doing ollies and kickflips against the car parking posts. Inside the Hall of Memories, inside the Carillon, which looms large over the same space, lit up like a Roman candle, the lights are low and blue. Meanwhile the cold is seeping into the bones of youth, breath freezing on the puff, defiant to the winter in their T-shirts and singlets, we happy few stay warm and toasty seated on the floor of the inner chamber, a blue womb of remembrance. The perfect location for poems of mourning and honouring the brave souls who fell in WW1, and those were brutally cut down by the gunman at the 2019 mosque attacks, and the lone voice of extinct wildlife.

The stage – simply the steps at the Southern end – provides a simple elevation for vocalist Hannah Griffin, violinists Martin Riseley and Donald Maurice, cellist Inbal Megiddo and pianist and tonight’s composer, Norman Meehan. The only party missing, poet Bill Manhire, who wrote every word sung tonight.

I’m sure you’ve heard of Manhire – Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at Victoria University, recent UNESCO Visiting Professor of creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for poetry 2007. He’s championed many, many writers. You’ve seen his work everywhere – books, events, memorials, there’s even one poem cast in concrete on the Wellington Harbour walk. Also, he’s a long-time collaborator with Norman Meehan and Hannah Griffin. Remember Making Baby Float (2010) or Small Holes in the Silence (2015).

In a room with perfect acoustics, it was Griffin who sung Manhire’s poetry – first Huia, which honours the extinct bird, recognising its anxiety and impending disappearance from memory, told from its point of view.

“I lived amongst you once
And now I can’t be found
I am made of things that vanish
A feather on the ground”

(from Huia – Bill Manhire 2020)

A comment not only on wildlife conservation, but on human survival – against ourselves. We will create our own extinction if we’re not careful.

Then the most poignant, almost chilling piece, Known Unto God, a song cycle centered on verse composed to commemorate the Battle of the Somme. The poem itself is a series of very short stanzas, some merely double couplets. There is so much meaning, despite the economy of letters. Like a barely there memory. For example:

“Boy on horseback
boy on a bicycle, boy all the way
from Tolaga Bay /
blown to bits in a minute”.

(from Known Unto God – Bill Manhire, 2016)

The boy hardly existed, such a fleeting life, such a fleeting moment, a candle that burned so quickly, to be snuffed out, without any warning.

The lines are repeated in Suzie Hanna’s short film, broadcast on the back wall and across the face of Lyndon Smith’s sculpture, Mother & Child. The animations, voiced by Stella Duffey and sonically accompanied by Phil Archer remind me of Raymond Brigg’s work – sketchy, like exploding crayon art, as if a child’s memories have been extrapolated out of the drawings stuck up on the family fridge.

Then back to the poetry, with Griffin singing the next stanzas. And so, these lines go, each with a slightly different piece of music, sometimes the ensemble work together. Other times, other lines, just the piano and voice. Each is a voice from the grave, allowed to speak their brief truth. Boys to men, soldiers and even displaced persons, escaping on a leaky ship, learning a new word: ‘Refugee’. Sobering, thoughtful. And in this Hall of memories, surrounded by plaques commemorating battles, companies, and divisions, we are reminded of how privileged we are to live away from the constant threat of war.

Given our nearby forecourt occupants, these lines really resonated:

“They dug me up in Caterpillar Valley
And brought me home –
Well, all of the visible bits of me
Now people arrive at dawn and sing,
And I have a new word: skateboarding.”

(from Known Unto God – Bill Manhire, 2016)

Exactly.

The programme, merely 40 minutes long, concludes with Little Prayers. It’s sad but hopeful. The music carries the lines in a direction of reconciliation. Meehan avoids the usual funereal dirges and keeps it light and buoyant, as if we are floating not treading water. Aotearoa’s reaction to the shootings was a reaction and outpouring of love, not revenge or xenophobic hatred. Yet we were quiet, cautious, nervous, too. The music reflects all that. The lines offer a solution forward:

“May the closing line be an opening line”

(from Little Prayers – Bill Manhire, 2019)

In other words, look to the other side before making your decisions.

Bringing all this poetry to us in song, Hannah Griffin’s voice is possibly the most pure I’ve ever heard. And strong, convincing. I’ve heard her work both with Manhire and Meehan extensively. She’s recorded with Nick van Dijk and Rosie Langabeer large ensemble Zirkus and various jazz ensembles. In Meehan’s own words: “she brings the magic”. Indeed, she does. She barely needed the microphone. Her phrasing perfect, subtle, nuanced, delicate. Her notes, engulfed by the superb playing of the string section swirled up to the high ceilings and echoed about the pillars of the building like a choir in the cloisters. Perfect ambience, not too bright but exceptionally dramatic all the same.

Tonight’s event was intimate and short. But like a slim book of poetry, perfect time, size and sound. There’s an album out on Rattle Jazz, for those that missed this inaugural performance. Only there will you get anywhere near the perfect experience of tonight.

A huge thank you to Andrew and the crew at Lōemis Festival.

 

Photo Credit: Tim Gruar for Muzic.NZ
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