Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 26, Number 9, 1 September 2009 — Poetic wāhine to read at the MACC [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Poetic wāhine to read at the MACC

By ī. Ilihia Giūnsan Publicatiūns Editur Astoried people, we Hawaiians are. We've been telling stories since tinie immemorial: stories of creation, of families, of prophecies, of great leaders, of epie battles, of great victories and of crushing defeats. And this heritage of storytelling continues today in media both new and old. On Sept. 11, five Native Hawaiian women poets will tell their stories at "Remembering Roots and Envisioning Future," at 6 p.m. at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center in Kahului, Maui. Joining veteran poets Puanani Burgess, Ho'oipo DeCambra, Mahealani Perez-Wendt and Tamara Wong-Morrison will be lamaiea Heolimeleikalani Osorio, who recently won an international poetry slam competition and performed for President Obama in May. Here's a quick rundown of the performers: • Burgess is a poet, facilitator, trainer and consultant from Wai'anae, O'ahu. She is noted for her community, family and values-based eeonomie development, mediation and storytelling processes as part of conflict transformation. She is a board member of Hale Na'au Pono, the community mental health center in Wai'anae. • DeCambra's work includes decades of service to the eonununity in the areas of substance abuse, women's rights, Hawaiian issues and world peaee. She works at Hale Na'au Pono using a cultural foundation to empower those with mental illness to manage their lives. • Perez-Wendt, a longtime poliīieal activist and director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp„ has been published in more than a dozen literary anthologies. She is a 1993 recipient of the Elliott Cades Award for Literature. Her first book of poetry, Uhihaimalama, was pubhshed by Kuleana 'Ōiwi Press in 2007. • Wong-Morrison has taught poetry in Hawai'i as a Poet-in-the-Schools, and is now a language arts teacher at the Volcano School of Arts and Sciences on Hawai'i. With her sisters Nāpua and Paula, she started 'Ohana 0 Māhā'ulepū to protect the Kaua'i shoreline from develonment.

• Nineteen-year-old Osorio is a sophomore at Stanford University, studying race, ethnicity and public policy. She burst onto the poetry scene as a member of Youth Speaks Hawai'i, an 0'ahu-based slam poetry team that took top honors at the Brave New Voices fesI tival the past two years. Her first language is Hawaiian, but she ean slam in English as well.

rhe event is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, Hawai'i Tourism Authority, Maui H County and Ala I Kukui. Tickets are $20. For tickets and information, eall 808-242-SHOW (7469) or visit I mauiarts.org. ■

'ALEMANAKA ■ CALENDAR KA WAI OLA | ĪHE LIVING WAĪER 0F OHA