Fast talking PI
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Fast talking PI
Auckland University Press, 2009
- Other Title
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Fast talking Pacific Islander
Available at 2 libraries
Note
Accompanied by audio CD entitled: Fast talking PI / all poems written and performed by Selina Tusitala Marsh and music composed and performed by Tim Page
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Fast Talking PI is the first 'singular, confident and musical' collection of poetry by Auckland writer Selina Tusitala Marsh. 'Tusitala' means writer of tales in Samoan, and Marsh here lives up to her name with stories of her life, her family, community, ancestry, and history. Her poetry is sensuous and strong, using lush imagery, clear rhythms and repetitions to power it forward. The list poem is a favourite style, but 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 PI' (already a classic). In poems like 'Guys Like Gauguin' she writes as a 'calabash breaker', fighting back against 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', and Fast Talking PI proves it - a generous work that will thrill readers; 'a map in our arms / to get us over the reef'; and a tremendous first book.
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