Full Description
I throw out a life line / but no one's read it
(from 'Cardboard Crowns')
A Pacific Islander (PI) of Samoan, Tuvaluan, English, Scottish and French descent, Selina Tusitala Marsh reflects on the issues affecting the Pacific communities of New Zealand, as well as indigenous peoples around the world - including the challenges and triumphs of being afakasi (mixed race).
The book is made up of three sections: 'Tusitala' (personal poems), 'Talkback' (political and historical poems) and 'Fast Talking PIs' (sequences of dialogue). Together the poems smash stereotypes, and challenge historic injustices the world over.
Selina Tusitala Marsh was the first Pacific Islander to graduate from the University of Auckland with a PhD in English, where she now lectures in Māori and Pacific literary studies. In 2010 she won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry for the Auckland University Press edition of this collection (2009), which made the top five bestsellers list in New Zealand.
Contents
Contents, TUSITALA, Googling Tusitala , Not Another Nafanua Poem , Afakasi , Calabash Breakers , Hone Said , Things on Thursdays, Song for Terry, , Langston's Mother, Cardboard Crowns , The Sum of Mum, Wild Horses , Three to Four , Le Amataga / The Beginning, Spare the Rod, A Samoan Star-chant for Matariki, Circle of Stones , TALKBACK Guys like Gauguin, Nails for Sex, Mutiny on Pitcairn, Two Nudes on a Tahitian Beach, 1894, Venus in Transit , Realpolitik , Contact 101 , Has the whole tribe come out from England?, What's Sarong With This?, The Curator, Hawai'i: Prelude to a Journey, Touring Hawaii and Its People , Alice's Billboard , FAST TALKING PI Acronym , Outcast , Notes and acknowledgements
