Hawai‘i Literature & Art
— Since 1978 —
Akule I was home to Maui for the summer, home from the university and final exams. Dead broke, I took a job picking pineapples in the waning weeks of the season for a buck fifteen an hour, trying to get a head start on fall semester costs. I sweated for six weeks in the fields,…
The Shift Kyla-Marie K. Turner ENG 431 The big classroom hall lights switch off, the rows of chairs disappearing with the fading lights. Visibly, the classroom is reduced to just the “stage”. Two podiums on opposing side at the front of the classroom, the lights in the front creating a sort of spotlight which…
The warm summer of 2021 will always be a cherished memory. I visited the mainland for the second time, the first being when I was five years old. Sixteen years made an entirely different experience for me. I have so many fond memories from that summer spent in the sunny state of Florida. Such as,…
ON HE RODE — Chapter Fifty Lucky for us, there is a rear exit leading directly to the parking lot. “You drive,” I tell Mary. “This is your kuleana, your territory.” “What? Me and losers and crazy people? If you want my advice as an almost-certified professional, just stay away from all of it. You’ll…
My dad used to have them outside his den. I remember sneaking down there in the dead of night to try to see them. Or maybe I was dreaming, perhaps sleepwalking my way to his collection. Whether awake or asleep, I know I wanted to be impressed, to marvel at the pieces, whether for their…
It’s kind of amazing how fast I start feeling normal by starting my day in a neighborhood among normal people who prepare to go normal places and do normal things. And how good and normal “normal” can feel. Do Kerouac and Kesey feel normal? Would they feel normal tooling around Boston behind the wheel of…
Milton stumbles shakily around Mānoa Valley amid traffic. Petrarch perambulates Punchbowl Cemetery perusing stark headstones of veterans. Shakespeare window-shops for Hawaiian souvenirs at Ala Moana Center. Whitman whistles while he waits for a bus at the corner of Ward and Kapi‘olani. Dickinson rents a Biki bike at University and rides down Beretania to Alakea Street….
ON HE RODE — Chapter Forty-Eight In the meantime I’ll take advantage of what must be the most comfortable seating accommodation anywhere, the first five miles of riding any Greyhound or Trailways cross-country hauler. It never fails, ever. The first thing I sit down I can’t believe how anatomically perfect this wonderful combination of lounge…
I’m sleeping, I think; this has the vivid feeling of a dream. Before my house was rebuilt, a huge mango tree stood in the front yard. Somehow sitting on those long gone steps leading up to the former lānai and front door, I hear a voice call out my name, a small, high one, barely…
It turns out we don’t use names much anyway to confirm that we’re all part of The Movement to End All War Forever and other absurd notions having to do with social and economic equity that could quickly and easily be achieved if the pigs would just legalize pot so everyone could share the bliss…