Karlo Mila
KARLO MILA is a New Zealand-born poet of Tongan and Pakeha descent. She lives in Auckland with her husband and two young sons and currently holds a scholarship to do her PhD which will explore health issues for young Pacific women raised in New Zealand.
Mila’s poetry has been published in Best New Zealand Poems 2003 and 2005. Her work appears in a number of anthologies, including 2004 Montana New Zealand Book Award-winning anthology Whetu Moana and more recently Niu Voices: Contemporary Pacific Writing 1.
In 2006, her first published collection, Dream Fish Floating, won the Jessie MacKay Best First Book Award for Poetry at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. The judges commented: ‘Karlo Mila writes with flair, energy and passion, creating a direct, accessible poetry.’
Mila recently wrote a short story titled ‘One Girl Dreaming’ which appears in the anthology Myth of the 21st Century edited by Jack Ross and Tina Shaw. She is currently collaborating with artist Delicia Sampero to produce her second book of poetry.
Mila comments: ‘This poem was inspired by my time in Tonga during the funeral of His Majesty King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV. I was a member of the team asked to write about the Royal Funeral for the official Palace Office website. We flew across to Tonga at the same time as the Hercules plane that held the late Monarch. I was very privileged to have many of the ancient ceremonies and rituals described to me, so that I could write about them for others. This was an incredible time to be in Tonga. The mourning consumed the country. The evening vigils and fires of the “Takipo” that lined the streets made Tonga feel like Pulotu (the underworld) on earth.
‘It also made me (the odd outsider/insider) reflect on my place in Tongan society, especially as a young New Zealand-born woman and the choices I’d made (which both excluded and included me in different sorts of ways). It was a magical time, perfect for inspiring poetry like this, which partly involves also exploring the “underworld” within — and making that both safe and spoken via heliaki (metaphor) and poetry.’
