Fast Talking PI

Posted in Books, Media Archive, Oceania, Poetry on 2015-04-24 13:35Z by Steven

Fast Talking PI

Arc Publications
July 2012
80 pages
216 x 138 mm (paperback), 223 x 145 mm (hardback)
Paperback ISBN: 978-1904614-35-7
Hardback ISBN: 978-1904614-77-7

Selina Tusitala Marsh, Senior Lecturer of English Drama and Writing Studies
University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Fast Talking PI (pronounced pee-eye) reflects the poet’s focus on issues affecting Pacific communities in New Zealand, and indigenous peoples around the world including the challenges and triumphs of being afakasi [mixed race]. The book is structured in three sections, Tusitala (personal), Talkback (political and historical) and Fast Talking PIs (dialogue). She writes as a calabash breaker, smashing stereotypes and challenging historic injustices; also exploring the idea of the calabash as the honoured vessel for identity and story. Her aesthetics and indigenous politics meld marvellously together.

List of 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 PIS
    • Fast Talkin’ PI
    • Acronym
    • Outcast
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Biographical Note
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