Maya Marshall
Hunger and the radio call us to the kitchenette.
Mama and that nasty-ass Bill at the table with paring knife
and lime sipping gin already.
Mama say, “Go ’head. Show Bill what all you can do.”

Mama and that nasty-ass Bill at the table watch me drop
my hip like little Sally Walker.
Mama say, “Go ’head, show Bill what all you can do.”
Twist and twirl. Blossoming at ten, I can tear.

Watch me drop my hip like little Sally Walker with a paring
knife and lime. Watch me twist and twirl in time. Blossom, tear.
Hunger and the radio call us to the kitchenette.
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Front cover of Ask the Brindled
An Interview with Noʻu Revilla

"Literary excellence is very much part of our roots as Hawaiians, but assimilation does a fantastically vigorous job. While Hawaiian culture certainly appeared in my education, for example, there was definitely pressure, not just from high school counselors but adults in general, to graduate and leave. We were taught that the farther away you can get from Hawaiʻi after high school, the more successful you will be."

via Poetry Northwest
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Cover of Mither Tongue
What Sparks Poetry:
Christine De Luca on Jidi Majia’s “The Enduring One”


"Reading the poem I was given, ‘The Enduring One’, I sensed a flavour of the Old Testament books of Genesis and Proverbs, of Norse sagas, of the Finnish Origin stories as told in the Kalevala. There was the same sensual lyricism, the fabulous nature of the tales and the sheer urgency of telling. Also the sense of long kinship, the importance of genealogy and the need to remember, especially heroic forebears."
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