Post-It
white for blackmail
on the yellow
Post-It note
stuck to the notice
board since April
wh te
its ‘I’ in the middle
not at the end
as in ‘afakasi
not no where
as in Samoa
but in the middle
white-washing the space
in between the wh y
and the te lling
Milner’s Whites
From the Samoan Side
pa‘e is a verb
means bleach
‘ua ~ mānaia lana tāga i le la
her washing is ~ing well in the sun
pa‘epa‘e is a verb
an adjective too
its plural is papa‘e
as in
(Be) pale, light-coloured
‘Ua tu‘ua‘i le to ‘oto‘o ~
It was left to the ~ (orator’s) staff
that is
belonging to an inexperienced orator
a way of saying that s/he has failed
(for want of sufficient maturity and experience).
Or (Be) white
‘E ~ e pei ‘o le u‘a : It is as ~ as bark-cloth
Sā ‘ofu ~ le teina : The girl was dressed in white
fa‘apa‘epa‘e is a verb
it means whitewash (with lime)
as in
~ le fale : ~ the house
pa‘epa‘emā is a verb
an adjective too
as in
(Be) snow-white
E ~ le namu : Coral lime is ~.
From the English Side
White is an adjective
pa‘epa‘e
as in hair
as in surf
as in albino : tetea ;
light in colour of plants - tea ;
of hair or head : sinā ; (pure ~, dazzling ~): sinasina
13 Dos and Don’ts When Visiting Whiteland as Recommended by Lonely Planet
Do: Understand your impact on white
I have bath salts from a basalt beach courtesy of the Goteburg Book Fair
Do: Use common sense with white
The Icelandic academic speaks a different body language, he’s standing a too little close
Do: Take the white seriously
Reykjavik is white
Do: Dress appropriately and pack serious white gear
Iceland has the world’s northernmost capital
Do: Plan ahead
You’d be lucky to Google Earth it now and see it all white, as it used to be
Do: If driving, do stick to appropriate roads
Especially around Snaefellsnes Peninsula
Do: Take a white tour
Amphibious bus blurs, snowmobile slurs
Do: White responsibly and sustainably
Do you think you could bury the poem in a glacier?
Do: Appreciate the whitelanders
I’ll come next November to dig it up
Do expect to remove your whites indoors
They used to dig a hole in the earth, pour in the batter, and a few hours later, bread!
Do always white with soap before taking a dip
Should we put the poem in the batter and watch the words rise through the earth?
Do drink the white water
I gift you a book from my sovereign state
Do be white and have a laugh
Stand a little closer, you’re not translating very well
Black White Desiring
After all the Post Colonial Theory
Oceanic Literary Study
Pacific Epistemology
Global Indigenous Research Methodology
Imperial Geo-Political Cartography
Capitalist Topography
Racist Iconography
Sexist Typography
Black Skin / White Mask Psychology
Margin / Centre Ontology
Ethno-Poetic Ethnography
MLA or APA Bibliography?
I watch The Vampire Diaries
Blood sucking, triangulating tyrannies
Love lorned, love lost, love lust diarizing
Fang-bangers, wolf-jammers conspiring
Scholarly and pop culture re-wiring
After a day of territorial indigenizing
It’s all a transfusion of desiring
POPO (People of the Pacific Ocean)
plays the white game black
the prayerhouse, the prayerhouse - where everyone gets a pardon!
Black Saturday, Bloody Sunday
The over-sized neon bottle-top blinks
I am not your typical islander
So fuck you and your stereotypes
Red Comb (for Lonnie Hutchinson)
ruby-red steel comb
tip-toeing on its teeth
flowering blooming arseholes
black pearl redding
laughing in relief
captive nature
turns provocateur
in white spaces-in-between
Biography Selina Tusitala Marsh
Selina Tusitala Marsh has two award-winning collections of poetry, Fast Talking PI (2009) and Dark Sparring (2013) published by AUP. She is a poet-scholar and teaches in Pacific Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Auckland. Her critical and creative work focuses on giving voice to Pasifika communities. She a Judge for the NZ Ockham Book Awards: Poetry (2016), and is completing a book on 15 First Wave Oceanic Women Poets (1974-2016). Her best poems are called Javan, Micah, and Davey (her sons).
