Iconic Kiwi anthem 'Poi E' just turned 40 years old: 'Emotional but beautiful time'

It’s officially been four decades, but this Kiwi anthem has remained truly iconic.

Forty years ago this week the beautiful and catchy wait Poi E was created in the southern Taranaki town of Pātea.

Laura Mendes, the chair of the Pātea Māori Club said that getting to celebrate the song is "very emotional but beautiful time," said Pātea Māori Club chair Laura Mendes in a statement.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāruahine and Ngā Rauru) will be among those celebrating.

The waiata - composed by Maui Carlyle Dalvanius Prime and written by Māori language teacher and advocate Ngoi Pewhairangi - promoted the use of Te Reo Māori and has continued to do so to this day.

"She came out and she had gumboots on and she was the most unassuming, unpretentious woman I've ever met," Prime told RNZ in 2000.

"She says to me: 'I'd love to write some songs with you.' I said: 'I'd love to write some songs with you!'"

Poi E became an absolute hit in 1984, spending four weeks at no. 1 and 22 weeks on the NZ music charts, before charting again in 2010, peaking at no. 3, after Taika Waititi used the song in his famous movie, Boy.

The fun music video features Jo, the breakdancing guide, for a tour of Pātea and surrounds, the Pātea Māori Club were captured "just doing their thing", "bopping and twirling like piwakawaka" at the Aotea Waka Memorial on Pātea's main street where milk tankers and sheep trucks pass by.

"We are hugely proud of Poi E for achieving this milestone for the Pātea community and Te Reo Māori in Aotearoa. The poi can be likened to the fantail flying through a forest, just like tangata whenua finding their way through colonisation, land loss and reclamation of identity," says Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

"This anthem inspires our own to use Te Reo Māori, to be proud to be Māori and that like a fantail, we will eventually find our way."