Sounds terrific, Max.
Would you consider posting this to WOM-PO [Women's Poetry List]?  It would
be welcomed, I'm sure; there may be many on that list who'd like to know
about the poet and her new poetry book.
Here's where you can subscribe to WOM-PO and then post the information about
Dr. Tusitala Marsh:  [log in to unmask]

Best,

Judy

2009/4/9 Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>

> University's first Pacific Island PhD in English publishes poetry book
> 27 February 2009
>
> The University of Auckland’s first Pacific Islander to graduate with a PhD
> in
> English will this month publish a poetry and CD collection hailed for its
> confidence and musicality.
>
> Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh’s Fast Talking PI (University of Auckland Press,
> 2009)
> reflects the poet’s own focus on issues affecting Pacific communities in
> New
> Zealand, and indigenous peoples around the world—including the challenges
> and
> triumphs of being afakasi (half-caste).
>
> Dr Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tuvalu, English, and French descent;
> “Tusitala”
> means writer of tales in Samoan. The book, Dr Tusitala Marsh’s first
> published
> collection of poems, lives up to that name with stories of the poet’s life,
> family, community, ancestry, and history. Her poetry is sensuous and
> strong,
> using lush imagery, clear rhythms and repetitions to power it forward.
> Although
> the list poem is a favourite style, she also writes with a Pacific lyricism
> entirely her own.
>
> Fast Talking PI is structured in three sections, “Tusitala” (personal),
> “Talkback” (political and historical) and “Fast Talking PIs” (dialogue). In
> poems such as “Guys Like Gauguin” she writes as a “calabash breaker”,
> smashing
> stereotypes and challenging historic injustices; but in other poems she
> explores
> the idea of the calabash as the honoured vessel for identity and story.
> Ultimately, though, Marsh exhorts herself to “be nobody’s darling”; as a
> writer
> she is a self-proclaimed “darling in the margins”.
>
> “The title poem of this collection has become my signature trademark. I’ve
> had
> fantastic responses to it from within and beyond the Pacific community. Its
> message, and that of the collection, is that if you can name your identity,
> you
> can claim your destiny and become exactly who and how you were meant to be,
> even
> in the face of outside limitations and proscriptions. After embracing a
> ‘calabash breaker’ genealogy, my work here at the Department of English has
> become a strategic place to empower and inspire others through creative
> writing.
> For those contemplating study at University, there are a lot more
> calabashes to
> go around,” says Dr Tusitala Marsh.
>
> Acclaimed writer and Professor of English Witi Ihimaera praises Dr Tusitala
> Marsh as “the sassy hip-hop streetwise Samoan siren of South Pacific poetry
> and
> poetics. No, correct that: her poetry and poetics are world class. Her
> aesthetics and indigenous politics are meld-marvellous and her ideas will
> blow
> you away”.
>
> Dr Tusitala Marsh will be reading from Fast Talking PI at Auckland’s annual
> Pasifika celebrations from 11.30am-12 noon at The University of Auckland
> stage
> on Saturday 14 March (Western Springs Park).
>
> Dr Tusitala Marsh lectures on New Zealand and Pasifika literature in the
> University’s Department of English. She is developing a Pasifika Poetry
> website
> in conjunction with the NZ electronic poetry centre and working on a
> critical
> anthology of Pacific women poets writing in English. Her poetry has been
> anthologised already, including in the award-winning Whetu Moana:
> Contemporary
> Polynesian Poetry in English.
>
> Video and audio files of Selina Tusitala Marsh reading her poems and the
> text of
> some of her poems are available on www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz.
>
> Fast Talking PI will be launched at 6pm on Wednesday 11 March at The
> University
> of Auckland Fale Pasifika (24 Wynyard St).
>
> - Hmmm - now to try www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>