Selina Tusitala Marsh

SELINA TUSITALA MARSH is of Samoan, Tuvaluan, and English descent. She is a poet lecturing in the English Department at the University of Auckland. Her current obsession includes developing Pasifika Poetry Web, a sister site of the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre (nzepc). It is an archival site filled with poetry, interviews, biographical and critical information on poets of Pacific Island heritage in Aotearoa. Her poetry has appeared in the 2004 Montana New Zealand Book Award-winning anthology Whetu Moana and, most recently, in Niu Voices: Contemporary Pacific Fiction 1; a collection of short stories and poetry by Pacific writers (which she edited) as well as on her sons’ bedroom walls. She is working towards publishing her first collection of poetry in 2007, titled Afakasi, in addition to publishing her doctoral research as a book; Ancient Banyans, Flying Foxes and White Ginger, the first critical anthology of the first Pacific women poets to publish in English.

Nafanua: Ancient Samoan goddess of war, commonly mythologized, and reknown for her battle prowess. She covered her breasts with coconuts and was believed to be a formidable male warrior until her womanhood was discovered.

Koko alaisa: a dish made from cooked rice, cocoa and sugar.

Faleuila: toilet.

Saka: boiled up dish (saka kalo is boiled taro).

Aiga: extended family.

Makeke fou: market place.

Kupe: money.

Kua back: villages ‘at the back’ or away from the more westernized (hence sophisticated) capital of Apia. Derogative in meaning.

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