Bamboo Ridge Press - Hawai`i Council for the Humanities

Bank of Hawaii
presents the 3rd Annual
Hawaii Book and Music Festival
May 17-18, 2008
Bamboo Ridge Press
30th Anniversary
Program
Years
The Literature of
DIVERSITY
CULTURE
LANGUAGE
PERFORMANCE
in Hawaii
Program sponsored by the
Stories About Who We Are
Samuel Beckett once said that our job is “to find a form that accommodates the mess.” Even if life
itself is the mess: not quite the way we want it to be, not quite according to script, and where did all
this stuff come from anyway? Generally, the forms we seek come as stories, especially ones from the
heart and from the places we call home, stories that let us all in on the secret: that we ourselves are
the forms. These are stories about struggling to understand mainstream American culture, about fitting
in. Stories about finding our roots and resisting what hurts what we love. Stories of small kid time about
life at home, at school and in our communities. They are stories about who we are and what it means—
and they invite us to imagine the lives of others. Through local writing we come to recognize what
we hold in common and begin to lose our fear of the unknown.
‘A‘ohe o kahi nana o luna o ka pali; iho
mai a lalo nei; ‘ike I ke au nui ke au iki,
he alo a he alo.
The top of the cliff isn’t the place to look
at us; come down her and learn of the big
and little current, face to face.
(Said by Pele to Pa‘oa when he came to seek the lava-encased
remains of his friend Lohi‘au.)
— Mary Kawena Pukui,
Hawaiian Proverbs & Poetical Sayings
The Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities (HCH) was established in 1972 to
connect people with ideas by nurturing the joy of learning and inspiring public
dialogue about community and civic engagement. This has included a lot of
“talk story” about literature. Among many examples, you may recall Children’s
Literature Hawai‘i, supported by HCH for three decades to explore and
celebrate the literature of childhood. You may have attended storytelling, like
Chickenskin ghost stories of Hawai‘i; or taken part in literary role-playing, like
Funny Kine: Humor and the Humanities, or dramatic performances of oral
histories, like Getting Somewheres: Working Women in Hawai‘i; or joined
Let’s Talk About It reading-discussions in libraries on every island. Finally,
you may have heard about programs conducted directly by HCH: Motheread/
Fatheread classes for fragile readers, including mothers and fathers in prisons
and community correctional centers, and Literature and Medicine: Humanities
at the Heart of Health Care literary discussions for hospital workers and health
care professionals.
It seems natural now for HCH to support the Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival with its rich tapestry
of public discussions, readings and performances of great literature, music and cultural expressions.
HCH takes seriously its role of promoting lively and enriching discussions for the sake of the wisdom
and open-mindedness that our democratic society so desperately needs. We have never taken for granted
the responsibility to nurture and develop core values for each generation anew. It is a rather heady
effort, but also one that opens and warms our hearts—since we inevitably embrace the best stories we
can find, stories that we cannot even imagine living without once we’ve first read or heard them.
Bamboo Ridge is a pioneer in local publishing, time after time giving us our first experience of the
local literature unique to us. It has given so many local writers their first chance for publication. And
given us our first chance to read them. This is literature of the highest quality written by those who
both love the idea of Hawai‘i and yet struggle with its realities, including the struggle to be heard in
the first place. And for this, HCH comes to thank and celebrate the work of Bamboo Ridge. We call
to mind stories about unforgettable characters who display great courage, or perhaps great confusion;
who encounter wrenching hostility or unexpected kindness. For these are the stories that take us into
ourselves, for the lessons we can learn, and that take us out of ourselves, to see another’s point of view.
Culture, Diversity, Language, Performance: Please consider these four themes about to be discussed
at the Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival by local writers and humanities scholars—on how Bamboo
Ridge stories and poems reflect the many different Hawai‘i’s and the many ways we have of embracing
and resisting this place we call home. That, after all, is something worth imagining, worth reading, and
worth thinking about.
— Bob Buss, Executive Director,
Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities
2
Bamboo Ridge Press
“Until you see yourself in literature, you don’t exist.”
If that’s true, then Bamboo Ridge Press—founded by Eric Chock and Darrell Lum as a nonprofit
organization in 1978, to publish literature by and about Hawai‘i’s people—has, in a sense, continued to
make local culture and the people of Hawai‘i exist through its publications. Begun as a literary magazine
and named after a popular ulua fishing spot near Hanauma Bay, the first issue of Bamboo Ridge, The
Hawaii Writers’ Quarterly was published in December 1978, a hand-stapled booklet of local writing.
Now called Bamboo Ridge, Journal of Hawai‘i Literature and Arts, today’s issues are 300-page perfect
bound books that feature poetry and prose by both emerging and established writers. Some of Hawai‘i’s
best-known authors were first published in Bamboo Ridge. Special issues of the journal—single-author
collections and anthologies with unique themes—have for more than a generation been used as textbooks
or recommended reading in high school and college classrooms both locally and on the mainland.
While giving special attention to literature that reflects an island sensibility, Bamboo Ridge Press
publications have a broad scope and embrace a variety of work from writers across the nation. The Press
and its authors have received recognition locally as well as nationally for literary excellence, and for
contributing to the understanding and appreciation of the culture and the people of our islands while
gaining a diverse audience that extends to other countries. Works from the pages of Bamboo Ridge
have for many years been adapted for speech and storytelling performances, plays, and public readings.
Thirty years ago, founding editors Chock and Lum recognized the need for a literary magazine that
would provide a venue for local writers at a time when mainland publications were much less receptive
to work from the islands. 1978 was a banner year for local literature, marked by the groundbreaking
week-long Talk Story Conference, followed by the publication of Talk Story, An Anthology of Hawaii’s
Local Writers—fiction, poetry, and drama, edited by Chock, Lum, and others, that highlighted the notion
of Hawai‘i’s cultural pluralism, as would the issues of Bamboo Ridge which followed over the years.
To a great extent, Bamboo Ridge Press has thrived because it continues to respond to the initial
questions Talk Story raised about narrative, point of view, and voice. Questions such as, “Is there a
particular ‘Island Voice’? Do the writers here see things differently than
do writers on the Mainland? In what ways to do the Island cultures,
beaches, oceans, and weather affect our lives?”
Hawai‘i today boasts a rich literature produced by those who write in
their own language—be it in Hawaiian, Standard English, or Pidgin, or
simply in clear concrete images borne from a strong sense of place.
Hawai‘i proudly claims writers who employ a narrative talk story style,
perhaps due to hard won personal relationships, especially those of
family and community ties. So too do the stories and poems in Bamboo
Ridge reflect a sense of ease with island rhythms, multi-cultural settings,
Native Hawaiian or ethnic issues, the immigrant or plantation
experience, socioeconomic class struggles, and the simple and profound
observations of life in general and life in Hawai‘i.
There were 17 writers whose work appeared in Bamboo Ridge issue #1.
The latest, issue #91, released last month, features 45 contributors. In its
30-year history, Bamboo Ridge Press has published the work of over
850 writers and artists, continuing to nurture the diverse and distinct
voices of Hawai‘i, celebrating local culture and capturing literary images
to preserve for future generations.
— Amalia Bueno
3
Darrell H.Y. Lum and Eric Chock
Joaquin Siopack/The Honolulu Advertiser
DIVERSITY
We So Diverse!
Susan M. Schultz
Definitions of the term “diversity” prove unsurprisingly diverse. Diversity indicates variety, which
means a gathering together of differences; the term may connote “wickedness and perversity,” at least
according to the OED’s ancient history of the term. Diversity, from the point of view of any majority
culture, means adding on what differs from the majority. So diversity suggests a collection of
minorities, those that operate around a center of some kind; you cannot make diversity out of sames,
or out of the usually unacknowledged center. In Hawai‘i, “diversity” has had a fascinating history; the
word’s uses have varied, changed, diversified, over a short period of time. Diversity co-exists, often
uneasily, with strong notions of identity, whether they are ethnic or class-based.
Day and Stroven’s anthology
A. Grove Day’s and Carl Stroven’s 1959 anthology, A Hawaiian Reader, locates its mainstream in
those white male writers who traveled to Hawai‘i; whatever “diversity” there is in this collection
comes at the back, in “Ancient Hawaii,” and includes the Kumulipo. All of the material in this
anthology is presented in English, standard English.
Flowering of Pidgin literature
The Talk Story Conference in 1978 created a literary “center” around everything Day and Stroven left
out, namely the work of Hawai‘i’s Asian American and “local” writers. As Eric Chock wrote in 1996:
“We set out to create this vision as an alternative to the mainstream, white literary canon . . . we hoped
the writing [in Bamboo Ridge] would be representative of our regional, multicultural, modern, Local
community” (“Neocolonization” 12). The word “multicultural” stands out here, as it can be considered
synonymous with “diverse” in lexicons more recent than the OED. This alternative to the mainstream
would include work in non-standard English. Chock wrote in 1980: “It’s no secret that our own
government, through its various organs, has attempted to suppress varying forms of languages in favor
of one common language. And that ain’t Pidgin they talking about” (Best of Bamboo Ridge 7). Bamboo
Ridge Press’s publication of Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre in 1993
represented the fullest flowering of a new Pidgin literature, one developed by writers such as Jozuf
Hadley, Darrell Lum, and Eric Chock in the 1970s and 1980s.
Hierarchy vs. ethnicity
In 1994, the Local Literature conference held at Kapi‘olani Community College, witnessed both a
consolidation of the gains by Bamboo Ridge Press’s group of authors, including Yamanaka, and a
strong argument that this literature was not central to Hawai‘i. Dennis Kawaharada and Richard
Hamasaki argued that writers like Yamanaka ignore the native Hawaiian cultures and histories of the
place. In a real sense, Hamasaki argued against diversity: “If multiculturalism means that all cultures
are equal and that we can pick and choose which ones we want to study, like a consumer at a
supermarket, that will be potentially harmful because of the ethnocentric tendency of each group”
(1994). Taking issue with benevolent, or even revolutionary, notions of diversity, Hamasaki aims to
institute a hierarchy of literatures, with Hawaiian orature and literature at the very center. Where
Chock would argue against the organization of literatures by ethnicities, and for a strong sense of the
Local, Hamasaki and others claim that the concept of Local throws a blanket over what truly represents
Hawai‘i, which is Hawaiian.
4
Unpacking the term “local”
Since 1994, we have seen the launch and production of ‘ōiwi, a journal for native Hawaiians.This
journal claims the center, but is also part of the diversity of Hawai‘i’s literature that seems, as Chock
says, increasingly defined by ethnicity or gender. So Bamboo Ridge has published issues and books
that concentrate on work by Koreans, Filipinos, hapa writers, women, Hawaiian playwrights, and so
on, as if to acknowledge that the term “local” needs to be unpacked. Bundled in with these “ethnic”
writers are the largely unmarked white writers who also work here, generally considered to operate
away from the center, not quite “local” and yet included in the mix.
The issue of class
Are there not other ways to represent Hawai‘i’s diversity, positive and troubling—through questions
of class, of languages (not necessarily fitted perfectly to ethnicity), of genres used to engage these
issues? Class is a huge issue in a lot of Hawai‘i writing, but it remains unmarked, in the sense that there
has not been a Bamboo Ridge special issue on class, for example. It gets explored, obliquely, through
language (Pidgin speakers are generally more working class than standard English speakers), but not
as a special category.
Genre, language and style
Genre, or how one writes about all these issues, is another category that doesn’t get much attention.
Hawai’i’s writers use the poem, the play, the novel, the short story, the memoir, the mixed-genre essay
(Lisa Kanae’s Sista Tongue leaps to mind here), the spoken word piece, the CD, the stand-up comic
form, you name it. They write in many languages, from Hawaiian to English to Samoan (and other
Pacific languages) to pidgin, and they write in amalgams of all of these. Work in ‘ōiwi is deliberately
left in the language its writer chooses, whether that is Pidgin, Hawaiian, or standard English. These
choices are not arbitrary, but considered; much space in ‘oiwi has been devoted to discussion of the
language issue. Hawai‘i writers use jargons, academic and otherwise. Some, like Local Filipino poet
Normie Salvador, write poems that sound more pre-Raphaelite than post-colonial or post-modern.
Some write in more experimental forms. Why writers choose the genres, languages and styles they
choose is an under-evaluated aspect of the literature, one that I’d like to see addressed here.
Literature as lens
There’s also the question of how subject matter changes over time: while the subject of Hawai‘i’s
literature has rightly been Hawai‘i, I am seeing more work that uses Hawai‘i as a place from which to
consider the newest versions of American empire in Iraq, questions of war, peace, education. Writers
are taking this place not as a launching pad to the universal, as it was defined by such as A. Grove Day,
but as a lens to uncover other differences, if not diversities, in the world that tries so hard to define us.
5
Susan M. Schultz,
Moderator, Diversity Panels
Susan M. Schultz is the editor of
Tinfish Press. Since moving to
Hawai‘i in 1990, she has taught
modern and contemporary
poetry, American literature, and
creative writing at the UH-Mānoa.
Susan is a former president of
the Hawai‘i Literary Arts Council.
Her critical works include A
Poetics of Impasse in Modern
and Contemporary American
Poetry and The Tribe of John
Ashbery and Contemporary
Poetry, as well as essays on
Denise Riley and adoption, Linh
Dinh and disgust, Donald
Rumsfeld and political poetry,
and the poetries of Hawai‘i. Her
poetry books are Aleatory
Allegories, And Then Something
Happened, and Memory Cards &
Adoption Papers.
The Diversity Panelists
Amalia B. Bueno‘s first published poems were printed in Bamboo Ridge issue #87, in 2005. She has
since ventured into fiction, with her first published short story, “The Chicharon Widows,” featured as
the Editors’ Choice Award for Best Prose in Bamboo Ridge issue #89, in 2006. Her poetry and fiction
have also been published by Meritage Press, Our Own Voice, Katipunan Journal, and Mutual Publishing. Her work is forthcoming in anthologies by Spinster’s Ink Press (Women. Period) and Philippine American Literary House (Growing Up Filipino II). Although she doesn’t like to admit it, she is
working on a play called The Four Maria Claras. She works in media and communications for a college access program that targets middle and high school students.
Jody Helfand’s poems and stories have been published in over 30 journals, magazines, and
anthologies, His work first appeared in Bamboo Ridge issue #75, and if all goes well, his first book
of poems will be published early next year. Jody currently lives on O‘ahu with his family and pet
crayfish, Boris, but will soon be living his dream: working and living in Vancouver. At the moment,
his obsession is trying to figure out which books to keep before he finally moves away from the place
many refer to as “paradise.”
Cover of Seven Orchids,
by Ian MacMillan
Lisa Kanae was born and raised in Honolulu. She is the author of the Tinfish Press bestselling
memoir/essay Sista Tongue. Her prose and poetry have been published in ‘Oiwi: A Native Hawaiian
Journal, Bamboo Ridge Press publications, Hybolics, and Tinfish. Lisa’s story “The Way Islands are
Linked by Ocean” won the Editors’ Choice Award for Best Prose in the Spring 2005 issue (#87) of
Bamboo Ridge, Journal of Hawai‘i Literature and Arts. Her collection of short stories will be released
by Bamboo Ridge Press this fall.
Alexei Melnick is completing a novel about the crystal methamphetamine epidemic in Hawai‘i. His
work has appeared in issues of Hawai‘i Review and Bamboo Ridge. He’s received the Hemingway
Award for Best Undergraduate Fiction Writer at the University of Hawai‘i and was runner up in
HONOLULU Magazine’s annual fiction writing contest. He was runner-up for the Seiki Award for
locally-themed fiction.
Wendy Miyake is the author of Beads, Boys and the Buddha and The Bodhisattva Club, and the head
of Lotus Moon in Love. Raised in Mililani, she is also an adjunct instructor in fiction and
autobiography at Leeward Community College, a self-described card-carrying Buddhist and a multitalented young woman who is teaching herself book and web design. In 2001 she won HONOLULU
Magazine’s fiction competition with her story “GetMyMoi.com,” and her award included a trip to the
Maui Writers’ Conference.
ChristyAnne Passion began writing four years ago with the intent of becoming a novelist, but got
sidetracked into poetry. Her first works of poetry were published in Bamboo Ridge issue #87. She has
since won several awards and has been published in many venues locally, most recently this year in
Honolulu Stories and the Hawaii Pacific Review, Best of the Decade. She lives in Mānoa and is
working on the Renshi Linked Poetry Feature at bambooridge.com.
Kathryn Takara, born in Tuskegee, Alabama, is a professor, scholar, writer, and poet and longtime
resident of Ka‘a‘awa, O‘ahu. She currently teaches Africana Studies in the Interdisciplinary Studies
Program at UH-Mānoa. Dr. Takara has published over 200 poems in literary journals, articles in refereed journals, three chapters in books, a monograph, encyclopedia entries, articles on the Internet, a
short story, book reviews, and two books—New and Collected Poems, published by Ishmael Reed
Publishing, and Oral Histories of African-Americans in Hawaii. She has read her poetry locally, nationally, and internationally. She is a social and community activist, and has coordinated conferences
at the University of Hawai‘i. She is also a mother, a wife, and the daughter of one of the oldest cavalrymen and Buffalo Soldiers, recently deceased at age 98, Dr. William H. Waddell, VMD, a pioneer
in many fields.
6
C U LT U R E
Ho, That’s Us!
Craig Howes
The initial impulse behind Bamboo Ridge was the desire by a group of writers to read about
themselves. Its editors, and many other twenty-something Hawai‘i writers of the mid-1970s, had
gotten tired of being told that poetry and fiction about Hawai‘i, and especially writing emerging from
its indigenous or immigrant cultures, would be virtually unpublishable. The editors replied by
publishing themselves and other Hawai‘i writers, and the second half of their literary journal’s title
captured the intent. It was The Hawai‘i Writers’ Quarterly not just because the writers were from
Hawai‘i, but also because they wrote about Hawai‘i.
Place for Hawai‘i literature
In the early years, the thrill of each new issue, and of each public reading held to celebrate it, came
from a sense of recognition and discovery. Instead of John and Mary, those important people from New
York or the South who seemed to be the permanent characters of literature, readers encountered people
like themselves, from the same families and heritages, living in the same neighborhoods and attending
the same schools, and dealing with the same specific challenges that people living in this multicultural
community face. Bamboo Ridge made people realize that their stories were worthy of being told, and
just as importantly, that if there was now a place to publish Hawai‘i fiction and poetry, then just maybe
they could be writers too.
Local culture
At the same time as it was publishing stories about distinct ethnic cultures though, along with Kumu
Kahua Theatre, Cane Haul Road products, and even stand-up comedians, Bamboo Ridge was
recognizing and celebrating another Hawai‘i culture—Local culture. Born out of the Territory, World
War II, the Hawai‘i labor movement, and political triumphs of the 1950s, the Local had strong traits
and attitude—Pidgin, a belief that the immigrant groups brought here to labor had joined kānaka
maoli in resisting oppression, and a passionate conviction that this ain’t the mainland. (Locals Only!)
Criticism helpful
But for Bamboo Ridge and the other parents of Local art, this successful delivery came with
complications. Cynthia Franklin has pointed out that American literary anthologies and journals
appearing in the 1970s and ’80s devoted to previously unrepresented groups were greeted with shouts
of joy (At last!), but also with questions like “But where’s . . . ?” or “Why didn’t you . . . ?” For example,
the early Asian American literary anthologies provoked criticism that Japanese and Chinese American
writers predominated, and that women tended to be under-represented. The happy result was more
publication—collections featuring South and Southeast Asian writers, or anthologies devoted to women
writers—and often a revision of the original publication as well.
These same things happened in Hawai‘i. Some writers quickly declared that since Bamboo Ridge
wouldn’t publish what they had submitted, they would publish it themselves—and Hawai‘i’s literature
benefited. Bamboo Ridge itself diversified—special issues like Mālama: Hawaiian Land and Water,
or Ho‘iHo‘i Hou, the collection devoted to the legacy of George Helm, or the all-female Sister Stew
all appeared relatively early in the journal’s history.
The DeLima Factor
But controversy over how individual cultures were portrayed in Local literary culture inevitably
followed. The cause was what I will call the DeLima factor. No one has declared more strongly or
consistently that fundamental differences between Local and mainland culture make Hawai‘i a saner,
less violent, more cohesive, and funnier place. (Us locals gotta stick together.) Using parody as his
7
Craig Howes,
Moderator, Culture Panels
Director of the Center for
Biographical Research (CBR) at
UH-Mānoa since 1997, Craig
Howes has been series scholar
and co-producer for the
Biography Hawai‘i television
documentary series since 2001,
the editor of Biography: An
Interdisciplinary Quarterly since
1994, and a faculty member in
the Department of English since
at UH-Mānoa since 1980. A past
President of the Hawai‘i Literary
Arts Council, he has won the
Cades Award for Literature. His
story “Idiom” appeared in
Bamboo Ridge: 19 (1983), and
“The Resurrection Man” was
reprinted in The Best of
HONOLULU Fiction (1999).
primary comic tool, Frank DeLima almost always turns something from outside—usually an immensely
popular song—into something filled with Hawai‘i references. The result can be incomprehensible, and
even disturbing for a mainland audience, because the Local ethnic and cultural references aren’t
familiar, so most of the humor is lost.
Cultural paradox
But DeLima’s parodies quite often link an individual ethnic group to the original songs in ways that make
that group part of the joke as well. How would Prince sing “When Doves Cry” if he was Filipino? What
would happen to the Cuban song “Guantanamera” if a Local named Glen Miyashiro sang it? In both
cases, the parodies want to be funny not just because of what they do to the original, but also because they
draw on already familiar Hawai‘i ethnic stereotypes. And while turning a song Local may make it part of
a large Hawai‘i hybrid culture, the fact is that the audience is also laughing because they know that
Filipinos supposedly like purple, or that Glen Miyashiro wears glasses and reverse-print aloha shirts, went
to Kaimukī High School, and now works in one office. So the celebrated Local culture is often built out
of existing stereotypes, including ones that the ethnic cultures themselves are sometimes at the very least
tired of. I think that DeLima has an easier time dealing with this cultural paradox because for a performing
comedian, getting the laugh always has to be the priority. And DeLima gets lots of laughs. But in a literary
magazine that has made stories and poems about yesterday’s and today’s Hawai‘i available for generations
to come, the politics of representing cultures make everything more complicated.
Understanding different cultures
It’s important to remember that many of these challenges are the products of Bamboo Ridge’s success.
As the journal that came to be identified as a source for “authentic” or “true” literary representations
of Hawai‘i’s cultures, for many people, Bamboo Ridge provided their first, and perhaps only,
information about a particular ethnic group. I’m a perfect example of this myself. I had only just
arrived in Hawai‘i when I heard Eric Chock read “Poem for George Helm: Aloha Week 1980.” A few
weeks later, I attended the public event for Darrell Lum’s collection Sun, and enjoyed an entire evening
of literary Pidgin. Those early encounters with Hawai‘i literature deeply affected my understanding
of the different cultures in this community long before I had any real firsthand knowledge. And when
Bamboo Ridge writers started to find those supposedly impossible publication opportunities elsewhere,
their versions of Hawai‘i’s cultures couldn’t help but seem definitive, since these new readers often
had no source of comparison other than more Hawai‘i literature.
Exploring cultural issues
It’s this potential for representing cultures other than your own to uninformed others, and the way that
these representations have been carried out, consciously or otherwise, that have led to charges of
neocolonialism, racism, sexism, and classism. Thirty years on, though, what then can we say about
how Bamboo Ridge has dealt with these cultural issues of language, the Local, ethnicity, representation,
indigenous issues, settler ideology, and multiculturalism? First, I would argue that if they hadn’t arisen,
the magazine would have to be labeled a failure. Literature that explores issues of culture and identity
without causing controversy clearly isn’t plugged in. Second, unlike stand- up comedy, literature does
not have to subordinate everything to the laugh, and Bamboo Ridge has always published fiction and
poetry that is acutely and often painfully conscious of its own place in the debate. Stories that start out
funny often take a sharp turn—or several. Poems that seem to capture cultural resentments in their first
few lines become less certain as things unfold. And third, writers whose work has appeared in Bamboo
Ridge, and other Hawai‘i writers as well, have now had many opportunities to see how imaginative
writing about this place and its peoples is part of a larger cultural movements, and to have these insights
shape in explicit and implicit ways the next thing they write.
Bamboo Ridge, now no longer a quarterly and subtitled Journal of Hawai‘i Literature and Arts, is still
fulfilling its original mission of publishing writers who talk to themselves, who are still negotiating
the many potential rough spots in representing Hawai‘i’s cultures, and who through their acts of artistic
generosity, have taken their readers along for the ride. And Bamboo Ridge, more often than not, has
been the vehicle.
8
The Culture Panelists
Wendie Burbridge first appeared in the 25th Anniversary issue of Bamboo Ridge (#84) as the Editors’
Choice Award Winner for Best New Writer (to Bamboo Ridge) for her piece “Miss World,” an excerpt
from her in-process novel Yobo Pony. She has been featured on KIPO’s Aloha Shorts, been published
in ‘Ōiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal: Volume 3, and most recently in Bamboo Ridge issue #87 with
her short story “The Finder.” She was raised in Wahiawa, where she now lives with her husband and
son, and teaches fiction and poetry writing at Kamehameha High School at Kapālama.
Mavis Hara writes both poetry and fiction, and first appeared in Bamboo Ridge 23 years ago. Her
debut collection of short stories, An Offering of Rice, was published by Bamboo Ridge Press in 2007.
Born and raised in Hawai‘i, Hara draws on her family and real-life experiences as a student at
McKinley High School, military wife, cancer survivor, and adoptive mother for her stories. She has
a bachelor’s degree from the University of Hawai‘i and a master’s degree from the University of
California at Santa Barbara, and currently is a reading instructor at Kapi‘olani Community College.
Nora Okja Keller was born in Seoul, Korea, grew up in Hawai’I, and attended UH-Mānoa. In 1995
she received the Pushcart Prize for a short story, “Mother Tongue” (published in Bamboo Ridge issue
#60), which later became a part of Comfort Woman, her first novel and winner of the 1998 American
Book Award. Her second novel, Fox Girl, set in Korea in the mid ’60s, is the story of three young
Koreans who are marginalized by their society and abused by American GIs. Keller lives in Hawai‘i
with her husband and two daughters.
Michael Little, author of Queen of the Rodeo (2001), Chasing Cowboys (Summer 2008), and, most
recently, “Seven Ways to Tell If You Married a Cosmo Girl” (in Bamboo Ridge issue #91), first
appeared in Bamboo Ridge‘s 25th Anniversary Issue in 2004 (“Walter! Walter!”). He also co-edited The
Breakup Queen and Other Romantic Tales by Hawaii Writers (2007). President of the Aloha Chapter
of Romance Writers of America, Michael is working on a historical novel, Fanny the Pirate. He lives
in Kapahulu/Kaimuki, but his characters hang out at www.michael-little.com.
Wing Tek Lum is a Honolulu businessman and poet whose first collection ofpoetry, Expounding the
Doubtful Points, was published by Bamboo Ridge Press in 1987.
Gary Pak‘s “The Valley of the Dead Air” was Gary Pak’s first story to be published in Bamboo Ridge
(Spring 1987). Since then, he has published excerpts of novels and essays in various journals and
anthologies; two novels; two collections of short stories; and a children’s play. He is an associate
professor of English at UH-Mānoa. Gary was raised and presently resides in Kāne‘ohe. His most
recent publication is Language of the Geckos and Other Stories (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 2005). He is currently working on a novel of the Korean War.
Joseph Stanton‘s books include A Field Guide to the Wildlife of Suburban O‘ahu: Poems, Imaginary
Museum: Poems on Art, Cardinal Points: Poems on St. Louis Cardinals Baseball, The Important
Books, Stan Musial: A Biography, and A Hawai‘i Anthology. His poems have been published in such
journals as Bamboo Ridge (first appearance was in issue #4 in 1979), Harvard Review, and Poetry.
He teaches art history and American studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. A winner of the
Cades Award for Literature, he has lived in Hawai‘i since 1972. He is a diehard fan of poetry, painting,
and baseball.
Joseph Tsujimoto teaches 8th graders at Punahou School. His publications include Teaching Poetry
Writing to Adolescents (NCTE/ERIC) and Lighting Fires: How the Passionate Teacher Engages
Adolescent Writers (Heinemann). His stories “The Old Man,” “Gone,” “Big Trees and Lots of Light,”
and “Lucky Come Hawai‘i” first appeared in Bamboo Ridge in the early ’90s. This summer, Bamboo
Ridge Press will publish his collection Morningside Heights: New York Stories. Joe lives in Kuliouou.
9
Cover of An Offering of Rice,
by Mavis Hara
LANGUAGE
Pidgin Stil Yet Alaiv!
Kent Sakoda
Note: The orthography I use here is called the Odo Orthography, and is purposely made to not
resemble English at all—hence Pidgin is read as another language. It is consistent but not
standardized, which helps to preserve the sound of Pidgin better. The other convention is the use of
“...” between sentences. Being that Pidgin is generally an oral language, I want to have sentences look
more like utterances. The use of capital letters is reserved for the “D” (which represents the flap
sound like the “t” in “water,” or the local pronunciation of the “r” in “karaoke”) and in all preserved
proper names.
pidgin get had taim…
if yu laik chrai fain aut fram wen haed Pidgin lokol litacha meibi yu kaen go we baek fram wen Pidgin
wen frs stat awn da plaenteishen… mous taim pipol tael araun da midol pat awv da 1930s, de no fo
shua, U.H. haed pleiz daet wen ste rait in Pidgin awrede… douz deiz prababli onli lilibit pipol wen
no dis o iven kea… yu gaDa rimemba daet iven wen Pidgin waz jas statin, pipol waz kawlin om “a
hideous mongrel jargon…a barbarous perversion of English”… in da 1920s, de waz putin om daun
wit stafs laik “Hawaii is the land of broken English” aen “…Pidgin English…is not good English…not
spoken by good Americans…” aen “Pidgin English implies a sense of inferiority”... neva get eni
baeDa in da 30s aen 40s… ai tingk wen kam mo wrs… sam U.H. profaesaz de wen mek da baws awv
Standard English, yustu yuz wrdz laik lazy language, ungrammatical, faulty, sloppy, aen slothful…sam
aelamenchri skul tichaz go tich students daet “words spoken correctly and pleasingly pronounced are
jewels, but grammatical errors and Pidgin are ugly”… daet Pidgin waz laik “frogs, toads, and snakes”
ja laik in da kain faeri tel… “good speech was like the roses, pearls, and diamonds that dropped from
the lips of the good sister who helped people and was beautiful”… iven mo wrs in da leit 40s aen 50s,
Pidgin wen kam wan spich difaek, seim ting laik “language handicaps, reading handicaps, mental
deficiency, and cleft palate speech”… had laif… wit dis kain baekgraun, nat had fo tael hau kam haed
tek lawng taim fo lokol raitaz fo figa aut waz oke fo rait Pidgin… 30 iyaz ago, in 1978, da Hawaii
Ethnic Resources Center: Talk Story, Inc. wen go put tugeda wan kanfrens in Hawaii fo American
aetnik raitaz… dis waz da frs taim dis eva wen haepen… aet dis kanfrens, Eric Chock aen Darrell Lum
wen fil laik haed wan big puka fo lokol raitaz, aeswai daet seim iya de wen stat Bamboo Ridge Press…
ai tingk, aez oke fo kawl dis da stat awv lokol litacha…
Cover of Ho‘olu Park and the
Pepsodent Smile, by Juliet S. Kono
no naf still yet…
tude da churen awv Hawaii laki… get plaene buk kain stafs daet ste rait in Pidgin… de get uku
choisez… get nawvolz, shawt stawriz, poechri, pleiz, aeseiz, dikshanaeriz, graema buks, sawngz,
jouks, aen iven da baibol… stil yet, nat inaf… pipol chrit dis staf laik no waz impawtent… if da ting
nat fani o no mo plaene nawstawljik kain Pidgin wrdz den de nat inchrested… wi gaDa mek dem
andastaen hau kam de sapostu rid dis staf… if nat fo dem, den fo da churen seik… awf kaws, wi nat
goin tel dem de sapostu rid om… wi gaDa mek dem laik riding litacha in Pidgin aen aet da seim taim
sho dem hau kam aez so impawtent… aeswai wi get wan paenol aet da Honolulu Book and Music
Festival abaut laenggwej… wi laik tawk stawri abaut wat fo aen hau kam get Pidgin in lokol kalcha
aen lokol litacha… aen wai impawtent wi yuz om… wi goin bas om aut wit awl kain aidiaz wi get
abaut Pidgin in litacha… wi goin chaek om aut fram awl kain difren saidz… wi goin luk om fram da
raita said aen meibi tawk abaut staf laik atistik ekspraeshen, atistik laisens, kamfrt laevol, aen vois
10
laidaet… den wi go fram da lokol rida said aen luk aet aidaentiti, difren wrl vyu, kalchrol vaelyu aen
meibi tawk abaut wat wan nan-lokol rida kaen get tu… da nobadi said kaen bi abaut hau fo mek pipol
biliv Pidgin wan laenggwej, hau Pidgin kaen haelp kip da kalcha, hau Pidgin kaen tich da kalcha aen
enekain stafs laidaet… da laes ting wi kaen tawk abaut, ai tingk da mous impawtent ting…aez abaut
wai so impawtent fo get a-wa churen fo rid Pidgin litacha… espaesholi abaut hau wi kaen get da skuls
fo pe ataenshen…
no naf stil yet…
ai wen gro ap awn Kauai in da 50s aen 60s… get tu tingz in mai laif ai rili heit fo du… ai heit fo ran
aen ai heit fo rait… in faek, ai no laik du om so mach, daet ai iven wen get bachi… so nau, evretaim
ai gaDa go sampleis, ai ste ranin fo da bas stap chra-ing fo bit da bas... da raitin ting mo wrs… ai wen
go get mi stak in wan aekadaemik laifstail… aez min nau ai gaDa rait aen rait samo aen rait iven mo,
enekain stafs laidaet… aez wat yu kawl kama aen no we fo bakalus…
mai papale go awf tu awl da gaiz kaen ran gud aen rait gud… de tu gud… de ‘no ka oi’… so hau kam
ai heit fo ran?... ai tingk bikawz smawl kid taim, ai waz so momona ai haed had taim ran faes… insaid
mai hed, ai ste tingkin “kaen, kaen”… fil laik ai waz muvin ril faes… laik ai kud flai… no waz bat…
onli mek ‘A’… tu mach pein fo lilibit gein… aez da seim ting wit raitin… no get mi rawng… kapol
taimz in aelamenchri skul, ai wen get mai stawri kam aut in da deili nyuspepa… mek ‘A’, bat gud
kain… ai tawt ai waz gud… ai rimemba haed sam kidz bat, wen de rait, da wrdz jas flo aut aen da
stawri kam tugeda so izi… aen ai no min walaau kain… ai yustu tingk hau in da wrl de kaen du daet…
mos taim mai wrdz ste kapakahi aen samtaim iven wrs, ste awl haemajaeng… aez wen yu si da pepa,
ja laik blad… da baga ste blidin awl ova… had wrk fo paech om ap… fainali da ticha haepi aen yu
haepi ste awl pau awrede… yu fil gud da pein wen stap… aen den leita awn yu go baek luk da pepa,
samting stil nat rait, nat ril… no mo dakain filin... aez awl shibai… yu kil fait… agaen, plaeni pein fo
so lilibit gein…
bambai yu fain aut wat da chrabol… wen yu rait, yu nat sapostu rait laik hau yu tawk… aen mi aen
mai braDaz aen fraen gaiz yustu tawk mousli Pidgin English… ai figa, wat da dif… English o Pidgin
English, seim smael… in faek, aez mai stawri aen ai taelin da stawri aen aez hau wi tawk… so wat?...
de tael Pidgin broken English o baed English... no wanda da ticha haedtu mek awl kain koraekshen
laidaet… wat ai wen rait waz baed aen broken… ho ka sheim!...
poho yu mek sheim…
ai no tingk ai da onli wan laik dis... ai no get plaene pipol in Hawaii ‘awl seim mi’ o meibi we mo
wrs… ai hia awl kain Pidgin hawra stawriz… ai baet get plaene pipol awn da meinlaen aen awl ova
da wrl ja laik as foks ova hia… gaerenz, get plaene pipol hu mis aut awn wan gud ejukeishen… de
wen get sheim aeswai… de tingk de no kaen tawk gud… de no iven get tu da pat if de kaen rid aen
rait gud, bifo de giv ap… poho awl da potaenshol… ai sked fo tingk wat kain hyumaengges kain
laegasi wi ste mis aut awn… oke den, iven do ai ste stak in mai laifstail… nau, aet lis ai kaen skwawk
awl ai laik aen rait om daun in mai broken, baed English… ai ste tingk bat, wat if mai hanabata deiz
haed plaene Pidgin lokol litacha???
-PAU-
11
Kent Sakoda,
Moderator, Language Panels
Kent Sakoda was born and
raised on Kaua‘i. He likes to
think that his Pidgin is good
(aez min gramaetikol). He
teaches linguistics at
TransPacific Hawaii College
and a course about Pidgin in
the Department of Second
Language Studies at the
University of Hawai i at UHMānoa. He also oversees the
Charlene Sato Center for
Pidgin, Creole, & Dialect
Studies, and is a member of Da
Pidgin Coup (all puns intended)
and Bamboo Ridge. He and his
close friend, colleague, and
ally Jeff Siegel have written a
bright yellow book entitled
Pidgin Grammar: An
Introduction to the Creole
Language of Hawai‘i.
The Language Panelists
Eric Chock, one of the co-founders of Bamboo Ridge Press, wrote Last Days Here (poems) and
edited Small Kid Time Hawaii, a collection of poems written by children in his Poets in the Schools
classes. He traveled throughout the state as a Poet in the School for over twenty years, was
Distinguished Visiting Writer at UH-Mānoa, and now teaches at UH West Oahu. He has won the
Hawai‘i Award for Literature. His most recent publication was an article on local fiction in the March
issue of Spirit of Aloha, the in-flight magazine of Aloha Airlines
Ann Inoshita has published poems in Bamboo Ridge (issues #84, #87, #89, and #91), Hawai‘i Pacific
Review, and Tinfish, and has work forthcoming in Hawai‘i Review. Her book of poetry, Mānoa Stream,
was published in 2007 by Kahuaomānoa Press and nominated for the Hawai‘i Book Publaishers
Association 2008 Ka Palapala Po‘okela Award for Excellence in Literature. Ann was featured at this
year’s Celebrate Reading Festival and writes poems for the online Bamboo Ridge Renshi Poetry
Project. She lives on Oahu, and is completing her second collection of poems.
Juliet S. Kono had her first poems published by Bamboo Ridge Press in 1982. Since then, she has
continued to write poems and short stories. She lives in Honolulu and teaches English courses at
Leeward Community College. Her most recently published work is a children’s story called The
Bravest Opihi.
Darrell H.Y. Lum, fiction writer and playwright, has been one of the pioneering voices of Hawai‘i’s
literature through his use of Hawai‘i Creole English (pidgin). He has published two collections of
short fiction—Sun, Short Stories and Drama and Pass On, No Pass Back!—and received the Hawai‘i
Award for Literature in 1996 and the Cades Award in 1991. Along with Eric Chock, Lum co-founded
Bamboo Ridge Press in 1978 and edits Bamboo Ridge, one of the nation’s longest-running independent
literary journals. Bamboo Ridge continues to serve Hawaii’s literary community through its
publications, readings, workshops, and conferences.
Tyler Miranda’s work has appeared in Bamboo Ridge since 1999, as well as in Hawaii Review. His
first manuscript, a coming-of-age story entitled The House of Luke, is finished and is currently being
marketed about. He is working on his second manuscript, an adult fiction story called Even in Dying.
A teacher for the State of Hawaii, he presently lives in Ewa Beach with his wife and two dogs.
Lee A. Tonouchi, a.k.a. Da Pidgin Guerrilla, is da co-editor of Hybolics magazine, writer of da awardwinning book of Pidgin short stories, Da Word (Bamboo Ridge Press, 2001), author of da Pidgin essay
collection, Living Pidgin: Contemplations on Pidgin Culture (Tinfish, 2002), and editor of Da Kine
Dictionary: Da Hawai‘i Community Pidgin Dictionary Projeck (Bess Press, 2005). At Hawai‘i Pacific
University, Lee teaches da course on Pidgin Literature. Currently he stay working on one graphic
novel projeck wit artist Ryan Higa.
Jean Toyama is a poet, scholar, translator, and writer of fiction. Her story “Reciprocity” appears in
the latest issue of Bamboo Ridge (#91). Another story, “Sarumata,” and poem, “Special Recipe,”
recently appeared in Gavan Daws’ and Bennett Hymer’s anthology, Honolulu Stories: Two Centuries
of Writing. Another story, “Where Did I Put That Book?” will appear in Hawaii Review. Her first
work published by Bamboo Ridge Press was “Etiquette,” a poem about eating fish heads, which
originally appeared in 1981 (issue #9) and later in The Best of Bamboo Ridge in 1986. She lives in
Hawai‘i, where she was born and raised.
Cedric Yamanaka, born and raised in Kalihi, is the author of In Good Company, a collection of short
stories. He is the recipient of the Helen Deutsch Fellowship for Creative Writing from Boston
University, the Ernest Hemingway Memorial Award from the University of Hawai‘i, and a Cades
Award for Literature. He is also a winner of the HONOLULU Magazine fiction contest and a twotime winner at the Hawaii International Film Festival. Cedric is the host of Hawaii Public Radio’s
Aloha Shorts.
12
PERFORMANCE
Tell Me a Story!
Yokanaan Kearns
It all starts with the spoken word. With storytelling. With talk story. The writing of it, its transformation into literature—that comes later.
I could be talking about the local literature of Hawai‘i, but for now I’m not. I’m talking about the
supreme irony that Western Literature began not just as talk story but as the talk story of a long line of
illiterates. That line of illiterates singing songs about Greek heroes is said to have culminated in Homer,
the name tradition has given to the storyteller of the Iliad (the story of Achilles and a war in far-away
Troy) and the Odyssey (the story of Odysseus’ long journey home from Troy). Classical scholars will
tell you there’s a 500-year gap between the events Homer describes and the time when Homer composed his songs. (We call them poems because the music is lost to us.) There’s another gap between
Homer’s lifetime and the date when the epics were first written down. And that’s when we usually start
considering them literature.
“Oral literature” an oxymoron?
But are we right in doing that? Certainly, the word literature suggests something written down: after
all, literature and letter come from the same Latin word. But do we have to be bound to etymology when
defining what’s literary? Did the Iliad suddenly become literature only when committed to the page?
Is the concept of oral literature an oxymoron? These aren’t questions specific to the beginnings of
Western literature. The same questions come up when people talk about the origins of local literature.
Were stories told on the plantation literature? Was Rap’s Hawai‘i literature before Lee Cataluna arranged
Rap Reiplinger’s stories for the Honolulu Theatre for Youth’s recent stage production?
Others may disagree, but I’ll just throw this notion out there: oral literature is not an oxymoron. There’s
a direct relationship between performance and the written word, with performed “literature” often
long predating written “literature.”
Supporting local voice
A bridge in the divide between the performed and the written has been provided by Bamboo Ridge
Press. The pages of Bamboo Ridge are full of the local voice whose language might be deemed by
some as too close to the oral tradition, too close to the language of local talk story, not literary enough.
Although the vast majority of Bamboo Ridge publications have included mainly poetry and prose,
there have been plays as well. To name a few: Wai Chee Chun Yee’s nearly forgotten play from the
1930s, For You a Lei, and He Leo Hou: A New Voice—Hawaiian Playwrights, published in 2003 with
plays by Alani Apio, Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker, Lee Cataluna, and Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl. But that’s
not where the influence of Bamboo Ridge ends with theatre in Hawai‘i. There’s been a steady stream
of writers first published in Bamboo Ridge as poets or fiction writers whose plays have been staged by
Kumu Kahua Theatre or the Honolulu Theatre for Youth: writers such as Lee Cataluna, Yokanaan
Kearns, Darrell Lum, and Lee Tonouchi. It’s no surprise. The three institutions have a similar mission:
to give the local voice the chance to be heard, to give a local readership or a local audience the chance
to see themselves in print or on the stage.
Weapons of humor
So just what is this local voice we get to hear when it’s performed? How is it different from what you
might hear from a slam poet in LA or a playwright in New York?
As a playwright whose plays are usually full of non-Standard English, I think Pidgin serves a major
function in that voice. Pidgin is, after all, a dialect that’s pretty incomprehensible outside of the
13
Yokanaan Kearns,
Moderator, Performance Panels
Yokanaan Kearns’ writing
career was launched by
Bamboo Ridge Press launched
with his short story Confessions
of a Stupid Haole in 1997.
Feedback like “you write good
dialogue” led Kearns, (a history
and humanities professor at
HPU), to abandon connective
prose. His life as a playwright
began with the award-winning
Pidg Latin and continued with
How Kitty Got Her Pidgin Back,
Dis/Troy, Choice, and Maui vs.
Hercules. He is working on a
new play, Hong Kong Kung Fu
Revenge Comedy, his screenplay
Dead Language, is presently
with a producer in Sweden.
50th State (and perhaps certain parts of Las Vegas). From the start, Eric Chock and Darrell Lum made
Bamboo Ridge a place where Pidgin didn’t mean an instant rejection from the editor. For those of us
who write comedies, Pidgin is a language that brings with it an arsenal of weapons for humor. “What
are you looking at?” (Standard English) is not funny. “Brah, I owe you money?” (Pidgin) is funny.
“White” is not funny. “Shahk bait” is funny—and it’s a metaphor.
Da kine
And let’s not forget da kine, which deserves an entire volume all to itself. There’s no match for it in
Standard English. It can’t be translated as the kind. It can occasionally be translated as whatchamacallit, as in “Give me that whatchamacallit” for “Chry give me da kine.” Otherwise, it’s the perfect context-only phrase, capable of filling in for anything. It’s a noun: “I no like da kine.” It’s an adjective:
“I no like da kine stuffs you like.” Imagine two young guys, Jonah and Kaleo, talking story at the park:
Cover of Lee Cataluna’s
The Folks You Meet At Longs
Jonah: You like Vernalani?
Kaleo: Why.
Jonah: Cuz I heard.
Kaleo: You heard wot?
Jonah: I heard da kine.
Kaleo: What da kine?
Jonah: Bout you folks. Dat you wen da kine.
Kaleo: We neva.
Jonah: Wot den?
Kaleo: Only da kine.
Jonah: What kine da kine, brah?
Kaleo: Da lips kine da kine.
Jonah: Still yet, brah, if you wen kiss Vernalani, you da kine.
Kaleo: Tanks, eh?
Da kine is all about who’s talking and what they’re talking about. In Lee Tonouchi’s short story “Pijin
Wawrz,” a supercomputer that controls everything in Hawai‘i is finally defeated in a Captain Kirkoutsmarts-the-bad-computer moment simply because Big Ben (as the supercomputer is called) can’t
specify what all the uses of da kine refer to in a conversation. It takes humans to do that. More specifically, it takes Pidgin-speaking humans to do that.
Local characters, local problems.
But it’s not just Pidgin that marks local performance as different from mainland varieties. It’s the subject matter, too. Early plays evoked plantation days: a yearning for the homeland, the use of humor
to diffuse tension between ethnicities, and the struggle between an older generation that wants things
to be the way they were back home and the generation born in Hawai‘i that has its own language and
its own dreams that don’t involve the homeland. Ghosts haunt the local stage, some of them new to
the afterlife, some of them lingering from the days long before the plantations. And then there are the
local characters embodying peculiarly local problems: Bobo, the bolohead slow kid in Darrell Lum’s
“Beer Can Hat”(both the short story and the dramatic version that toured Hawai‘i schools) and the uji
guy in Cataluna’s Folks You Meet in Longs. One of the things local characters avoid more than anything else is shame—“making A,” making an ass of themselves. In Kearns’ How Kitty Got Her Pidgin Back, the title character who loses the ability to speak Pidgin on the day of the junior prom and is
horrified to realize she sounds like a babe on Baywatch Hawai‘i. And finally, of course, there’s the
land, the ‘āina, often playing a character with its own voice.
From the oral epic of Homer to the written plays of Aeschylus … from the talk story tales of the plantations to Apio’s Kamau, it’s performance first, then something you can sit down and read. But if you
read a poem by Kealoha or you read a play by Kneubuhl, you’re missing da kine, brah. You’re missing the performance.
14
The Performance Panelists
Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker, now residing in He‘eia, Ko‘olaupoko, O‘ahu is originally from Kapa‘a,
Kaua‘i. She is an instructor of Hawaiian at Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language at UHMānoa. Haili‘ōpua authors plays in Hawaiian, Pidgin and English. Baker also directs and produces
the Hawaiian language plays that she's written for Ka Hālau Hanakeaka, a Hawaiian medium theatre
troupe led by Baker and her husband Kaliko. These productions have toured the island chain of
Hawai‘i and internationally.
Lee Cataluna is a columnist for The Honolulu Advertiser. Her play Da Mayah was first published by
Bamboo Ridge Press in He Leo Hou: A New Voice—Hawaiian Playwrights in 2003. In 2006, her
collection Folks You Meet in Longs, also published by Bamboo Ridge, received the Ka Palapala
Po‘okela Award for Excellence in Literature and the Award for Excellence in Writing Literature from
the Hawai‘i Book Publishers Association. Cataluna’s plays have been produced by theater groups
around Hawai‘i and, in 2004 she received the Cades Award. Next up will be a reading in Minneapolis,
a remount of Da Mayah at Kumu Kahua Theatre, and of Musubi Man for the Honolulu Theatre for
Youth. She lives in East Honolulu.
Kealoha is the founder of HawaiiSlam, Youth Speaks Hawai‘i, and First Thursdays, the largest
registered slam poetry competition in the world (with an average attendance of 600+). He has
represented Hawai‘i at five National Poetry Slams, placing 8th out of 350 of the nation’s best in 2007.
Honolulu’s SlamMaster since 2003, Kealoha has toured throughout the United States and Europe,
and conducted workshops at over 100 schools, libraries, and community centers. Kealoha graduated
with honors from MIT with a degree in Nuclear Physics, served as a business consultant in San
Francisco, and goofed off as a surf instructor prior to becoming a professional poet. Visit
www.KealohaPoetry.com for more information.
Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl is a well-known Honolulu playwright and author. She holds a master’s
degree in drama and theatre from the University of Hawai‘i. Her plays have been performed in Hawai‘i
and the continental United States and have toured to Britain, Asia, and the Pacific. An anthology of
her work, Hawai‘i Nei: Island Plays, is available from the University of Hawai‘i Press. Ms.
Kneubuhl’s mystery novel Murder Casts a Shadow will be published in the fall of 2008 by the
University of Hawai‘i Press. She is currently the writer and co-producer for the television series
Biography Hawaii. In 1994 she was the recipient of the prestigious Hawai‘i Award for Literature and
in 2006 received the Eliot Cades Award for Literature.
Brenda Kwon is a poet, writer, and educator born and raised in Hawai‘i. She is the author of Beyond
Ke‘eaumoku: Koreans, Nationalism, and Local Culture in Hawai‘i and co-editor of YOBO: Korean
American Writing in Hawai‘i (Bamboo Ridge Press, 2003). Brenda’s work has appeared in various
journals and anthologies, including Bamboo Ridge, and she has read her poetry in Honolulu, Los
Angeles, Boston, New York, and Seoul. She is the co-host of the monthly poetry series re:VERSES
on O‘ahu and teaches Language Arts at Honolulu Community College.
John Wat is a local actor, director, writer, dancer, and educator. For Bamboo Ridge Press, he coedited He Leo Hou: A New Voice—Hawaiian Playwrights, published in 2003. For Kumu Kahua
Theatre, in addition to Pele Mā (Bamboo Ridge Press 2001), he co-adapted and directed Gary Pak’s
A Ricepaper Airplane, Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort Woman, and Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s Wild Meat
and the Bully Burgers. He teaches and directs at Mid-Pacific Institute School of the Arts (MPSA),
where he co-authored and directed The Only Dance There Is, in collaboration with the MPSA Dance
Department.
15
Bank of Hawaii presents
Hawaii Book and Music Festival
May 17-18, 2008
Bamboo Ridge Press
30th Anniversary Program
Hawaii Council for the Humanities Pavilion
SATURDAY MAY 17
10 a.m.
SUNDAY MAY 18
Ho, That’s Us!—Culture
Craig Howes, Moderator
Wendy Burbridge; Mavis Hara;
Nora Okja Keller
11 a.m.
We So Diverse!—Diversity
Susan Schulz, Moderator
Amalia Bueno; Jody Helfand; Lisa Kanae;
Alexei Melnick
Noon
Pidgin Stil Yet Alaiv!—Language
Kent Sakoda, Moderator
Ann Inoshita; Juliet Kono; Darrell H.Y. Lum
1 p.m.
Tell Me a Story!—Performance
Yokanaan Kearns, Moderator
Victoria Kneubuhl; Keloha
2 p.m.
Bamboo Ridge Open Mike
[Pele Ma play in Mission Memorial Auditorium]
3-4:15 p.m. Hawai‘i Literary Arts Council
Elliott Cades Awards for Literature
[Honoring Ian MacMillan & Wendy Miyake]
4:15 p.m.
N.A.
[Lois-Ann Yamanaka in the
Mission Memorial Auditorium]
10 a.m.
Tell Me a Story!—Performance
Yokanaan Kearns, Moderator
Brenda Kwon; Lee Cataluna; John Wat
11 a.m.
We So Diverse!— Diversity
Susan Schultz, Moderator
Wendy Miyake; Christy Anne Passion;
Kathryn Waddell Takara
Noon
Aloha Shorts
[[Stories by: to come by Sunday pm]]
[[Read by:
]]
1 p.m.
Pidgin Stil Yet Alaiv!—Language
Kent Sakoda, Moderator
Eric Chock; Tyler Miranda; Jean Toyama
2 p.m.
Ho, That’s Us!—Culture
Gary Pak, Moderator
Michael Little; Wing Tek Lum;
Joseph Stanton; Joseph Tsujimoto
3 p.m.
Bamboo Ridge Open Mike
4 p.m.
N.A.
[Eric Chock & Darrell H. Y. Lum in the
Mission Memorial Auditorium]
Produced by Hawaii Book and Music Festival
Executive Director: Roger Jellinek
Consultants: Eric Chock, Darrell Lum, Michael Little, and Joy Kobayashi-Cintron
Editor: Eden-Lee Murray
Copy-Editing: Joy Kobayashi-Cintron and Michael Little
Designer: Angela Wu-Ki
Printing: Donated by Hagadone Printing