Savage Coloniser Book, The

(Paperback)

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Kneel like a prayer full of lynching This is my God-given white The voices of Tusiata Avia are infinite. She ranges from vulnerable to forbidding to celebratory with forms including pantoums, prayers and invocations. And in this electrifying new work, she gathers all the power of her voice to speak directly into histories of violence. Avia addresses James Cook in fury. She unravels the 2019 Christchurch massacre, walking us back to the beginning. She describes the contortions we make to avoid blame. And she locates the many voices that offer hope. The Savage Coloniser Book is a personal and political reckoning. As it holds history accountable, it rises in power. 'Savage is as savage does. And we're all implicated. Avia breaks the colonial lens wide open. We peer through its poetic shards and see a savage world outside, inside. With characteristic savage and stylish wit, Avia holds the word-blade to our necks and presses with a relentless grace. At the end, you'll feel your pulse anew.' -Selina Tusitala Marsh, New Zealand Poet Laureate 'Tusiata Avia's poetry is a full-body plunge in winter seas. It's breathtaking, skin tingling and teeth rattling. I feel alive. It's as real to me as a salt-crested wave smashing me full in the face until I am nothing but that moment . . . Exhilaration, pain, vulnerability, joy, cheeky confidence and acknowledgement. But what I don't feel is lonely.' -Nafanua Kersel, The Hook Cover by Pati Tyrell

Reviews

'Savage is as savage does. And we're all implicated. Avia breaks the colonial lens wide open. We peer through its poetic shards and see a savage world - outside, inside. With characteristic savage and stylish wit, Avia holds the word-blade to our necks and presses with a relentless grace. At the end, you'll feel your pulse anew.' --Selina Tusitala Marsh, New Zealand Poet Laureate 2017-19

Author Bio

Tusiata Avia is an acclaimed poet, performer and children's writer. Her previous poetry collections are Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (2004; also staged as a theatre show, most recently Off-Broadway, winning the 2019 Outstanding Production of the Year), Bloodclot (2009) and the Ockham-shortlisted Fale Aitu | Spirit House (2016). Tusiata has held the Fulbright Pacific Writer's Fellowship at the University of Hawaii in 2005 and the Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at University of Canterbury in 2010.