Born the year Disney released Pocahontas, Tayi Tibble, a Maori woman in the colonized state of New Zealand, has inherited a few stories she’d like to detonate. In her collection Poūkahangatus, arriving on our shores this week to mark her American debut, she pays tribute to her ancestors and remembers the community that raised her. Weaving warm lyrics and glass-cut prose poems, visions of love through pop-culture and indigeneity through the questions of capitalism, Tibble uses the force of her wit and her vulnerability to carve her own creation tale in these bold, fresh-voiced poems.
Identity Politcs
I buy a Mana Party T-shirt from AliExpress. $9.99 free shipping via standard post. Estimated arrival 14–31 working days. Tracking unavailable via DHL. Asian size XXL. I wear it as a dress with thigh-high vinyl boots and fishnets. I post a picture to Instagram. Am I navigating correctly? Tell me, which stars were my ancestors looking at? And which ones burnt the black of searching irises and reflected something genuine back? I look to Rihanna and Kim Kardashian shimmering in Swarovski crystals. Make my eyes glow with seeing. I am inhaling long white clouds and I see rivers of milk running towards orange oceans of sunlit honey. Tell me, am I navigating correctly? I want to spend my money on something bourgie, like custom-made pounamu hoop earrings. I want to make them myself but my line doesn’t trace back to the beauties in the south making amulets with elegant fingers. I go back into blackness, I go back and fill in the gaps, searching through archives of advertisements: Welcome to the Wonderland of the South Pacific. Tiki bars, traffic-light cocktails & paper umbrellas. Tell me, am I navigating correctly? Steering through the storm drunk & wet-faced waking up to the taste of hangover, a dry mouth, a strange bed, shirt above my head is the flag fluttering over everything. What were we celebrating? The 6th of February is the anniversary of the greatest failed marriage this nation has ever seen. In America, couples have divorce parties. We always arrive fashionably late. Tell me, am I navigating correctly? The sea our ancestors traversed stretches out farther than the stars.
More on this book and author:
Learn more about Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble.
Learn more about Tayi Tibble and follow her @paniaofthekeef on Instagram.
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