ʻĀina Hānau: Birthland

 

My Thoughts:

This second collection of poetry by ʻōiwi poet Brandy Nālani McDougall takes a more academic and political stance (kū) on Hawaiʻi poetry by Hawaiian poets. In the vein of Haunani Kay Trask, this poetry is a message to and about lāhui builders and scholars. But what I find most poignant are her more personal poems, especially "The Map," for Clifford and "This Island on Which I Love You" for her husband Chamorro poet Craig Santos Perez.  I understand that political poems move us forward, but the personal poems move my gut. 

From the Publisher:

‘Āina Hānau / Birth Land is a powerful collection of new poems by Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) poet Brandy Nālani McDougall. ‘Āina hānau—or the land of one’s birth—signifies identity through intimate and familial connections to place and creates a profound bond between the people in a community. McDougall’s poems flow seamlessly between ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i and English, forming rhythms and patterns that impress on the reader a deep understanding of the land. Tracing flows from the mountains to the ocean, from the sky to the earth, and from ancestor to mother to child, these poems are rooted in the rich ancestral and contemporary literature of Hawaiʻi —moʻolelo, moʻokūʻauhau, and mele —honoring Hawaiian ʻāina, culture, language, histories, aesthetics, and futures.

The poems in Āina Hānau / Birth Land cycle through sacred and personal narratives while exposing and fighting ongoing American imperialism, settler colonialism, militarism, and social and environmental injustice to protect the ʻāina and its people. The ongoing environmental crisis in Hawaiʻi, inextricably linked to colonialism and tourism, is captured with stark intensity as McDougall writes, Violence is what we settle for / because we’ve been led to believe / green paper can feed us / more than green land. The experiences of birth, motherhood, miscarriage, and the power of Native Hawaiian traditions and self-advocacy in an often dismissive medical system is powerfully narrated by the speaker of the titular poem, written for McDougall’s daughters.

‘Āina Hānau reflects on what it means to be from and belong to an ʻāina hānau, as well as what it means to be an ‘āina hānau, as all mothers serve as the first birth lands for their children.

Publication Information:

Author: Brandy Nālani McDougall

Publisher: University of Arizona Press (June 13, 2023)

Picture Book Month: No Ke Kumu 'Ulu - Teaching through Place-Based Literature

Today's theme is Folk and Fairy tales, so I would be remiss to not talk about at least one Hawaiian folk tale. Hawaiians are an oral culture, so the mo'olelo (the stories) are numerous, so this is just one.

Summary:
Kawehi Avelino's tale is about Kū, a Hawaiian deity who took the form of a human in order to live a   normal life. He works hard as a human to support his family, but things begin to change and there is famine across the land. In order to save his family and his community, Kū sacrifices himself by leaving his family and goig on a journey through the earth. The tears of his grieving wife at the spot where he disappears sprouts and the first breadfruit tree is born. This tree grows and multiplies so that his family and his people can escape the famine.

What it looks like in the Middle:
Each region has its own indigenous culture and as middle school students struggle with their own identity, finding picture books that tell their story, with pictures of people that look like them is very important.

This book is a bilingual legend about this place and about how our ancestors were able to live on these islands. It can be used to introduce legends as a genre for writing workshop, but it also is a way to talk about values of our culture. This particular book exemplifies values like kuleana (responsibility) and lokahi (working together), but it also talks about what Hawaiians valued (water, land, community, family).

Students also learn important Hawaiian vocabulary through this book, but the real value is in the uplifting of a people through the honoring of their own place-based literature. Scour the small bookstores and local museums for these gems within your own community.

Ho'okupu: An Offering of Literature by Native Hawaiian Women

Before I do the review, just wanted to share a picture (taken by my dad) of the first public reading of this book at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, August 2009. Twelve of the eighteen women were on stage for the reading. In this picture is (left-right) Jerelyn Makanui-Yoshida, me (at the mic), Tamara Laulani Wong Morrison, and my mom, Mililani Hughes.
 

Ho'okupu: An Offering of Literature by Native Hawaiian Women edited by Miyoko Sugano and Jackie Pualani Johnson is the first anthology to highlight native Hawaiian women. This book has been a long-time dream of Sugano, a UH-Hilo professor emeritus of English. In fact Sugano asked me for pieces over twelve years ago, so when the book came out this year, it was like being reunited with a lost child.

This anthology of poems, plays, journal entries and short stories serves as an opening for conversations on Hawaiian literature. There are pieces written in the Hawaiian language, pieces written in English, pieces written in English using Hawaiian poetry elements, and pieces written in Hawaiian creole, a product of the plantation and immigrant past of Hawaii.

Anytime there is an anthology of women writers, I find that the passion for telling their stories, for recording their lives is rich, regardless of the ethnic background. The difference here is in the undercurrent of immediacy to get the native Hawaiian voice out. These women, no matter what language they chose to write in, came from a people whose native language has been beaten out of them, whose culture has been ripped away from them. Are they angry? Some of them are apoplectic, while others show more patience and aloha, traits of a culture that survives and thrives.

Tamara Wong Morrison, poet, teacher and activitst says, "I believe we bring to writing a genetic awareness of the grief of being Hawaiian and (coping with) the cultural loss, but the writing then becomes a purging … a cleansing and a way of finding some joy to over-ride the pain." Her poems reflect that in their rant against the desecration of the rituals to the fire goddess Pele as well as the commercialization of the Hawaiian culture into ticky tacky kitsch scented in coconut oil and bottled gardenia.