To launch the new anthology, a celebration of Native Hawaiian women writers was held at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo on August 30. From L-R, Jerilyn Makanui Yoshida, Cathy Kanoelani Ikeda at the mic, Tamara Wong-Morrison, and Mililani Hughes. – Photo: Courtesy of Don Hughes

By Liza Simon / Ka Wai Ola Loa

After years of teaching at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, Miyoko Sugano and Jackie Pualani Johnson decided there was a need to "bring more women with Hawaiian voices to the page," as Johnson puts it.

"Growing up in Hilo schools, I read a lot about Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan, but I knew so little about my own story," said Johnson, a Native Hawaiian and a professor in the UH-Hilo performing arts department.

As for Sugano, a UH-Hilo professor emeritus of English, a bittersweet epiphany arrived when students in one of her Asian-Pacific literature classes approached her to ask if local-based themes and language "deserved" the label of real literature. "They had been so restrained by the discipline of English studies. This just broke my heart and made me want to do something to bring forth the true joy of writing," said Sugano.

Ho'okupu book makes a great gift.

"Ho'okupu: An Offering of Literature by Native Hawaiian Women" is the fruition of Sugano and Johnson's efforts to free up well-imagined writing from academic and commercial classifications that too often erode not only the joy of writing but also the joy of reading and discovering rich new worlds in literature. The anthology of poems, plays, journal entries and short stories is marked by a variety of fresh perspectives — Hawaiian to the core and feminine for sure — but unself-consciously so. You will likely feel the writer's na'au before you identify her by culture and gender. "We refrained from trying to shape the end results to fit a preconceived concept of Native Hawaiian women writers," Johnson said.

So it happens that "Ho'okupu" juxtaposes seasoned writers with nonprofessional scribes. The 18 "Ho'okupu" contributors range from prominent playwright and novelist Victoria Nālani Kneubuhl, whose short story "Ho'oulu Lāhui" is a complex weave of cultural, political and ethical themes, to Rachelle Maikui — a mother of 15 whose monologue on giving birth to son Mo'omomi under moonlit Moloka'i skies is actually Maikui's spoken words, related to a local filmmaker who then transcribed the oral narrative and passed it on to Johnson and Sugano. Most of the women featured in "Ho'okupu" have day jobs unrelated to writing. But the net effect of this is that their careers as teachers, as managers, as moms, as civil servants work well to inform their creative expression with an attractive combination of accessibility and individuality. Whether they write for a paycheck or not, all voices in the new book pour forth with passion, underlining, as the editors intended, the human impulse of storytelling that resides in each of us.

"We were thrilled to find Hawaiian women who described everyday moments with such immediacy and beauty. Their work just lifted off the page. Their voices were so distinct from one another. Even their choice of language varied significantly from standard English, to pidgin, to Hawaiian. Together, they are like the various intricate patterns inside the same tapa design," said Johnson.

Given such a successful outcome, it's both remarkable and perplexing that Johnson and Sugano put out the kāhea for submissions and more or less finalized the compilation more than 10 years ago. As it turns out, the two professors had difficulty finding a local publisher for their anthology. Some wanted more references to history to define the Hawaiianess; some questioned whether the works were comprehensive enough; others were simply skeptical that a book of this type would sell. After all, publishers have a bottom line, supported by specific genres: tried and true marketable puka for cookbooks or kids books, mysteries or romance. In other words, the open-ended nature of "Ho'okupu" — its beguiling charm — was off-putting to many publishers. Many reviewed the submissions and would only accept the project if changes were made. This was not going to happen, said Sugano. She and Johnson wanted the integrity of their writers' works and their own editorial choices to be preserved. Discouraged, they put the manuscript on the shelf and almost left it there, until Mutual Publishing, a small Honolulu firm, agreed to take the collected works "as is." "Ho'okupu" finally hit local bookstore shelves this summer.

"One thing about the pieces is they have really survived the test of time," enthuses Johnson. "They seem so honest. I don't find an affectation. There is a real sense of bringing to life the people we are surrounded with," said Johnson, citing as an example Cathy Kanoelani Ikeda's poem "Max was Hea" — a bittersweet ode to a local bruddah who finds that his failure to get off the rock means he is locked into his father's destiny: "Wearing the same undershirt / Every damn day."

Sugano is pleased that the "Ho'okupu" pieces not only tackle the everyday environment, but also elevates it for a second and more resonate look through the lens of a Native Hawaiian woman's imagination. The upshot of this, she says, is a "conjuring of a sense of collectivity ... a shared recognition of the bonds that nurture Hawaiian identity." As an embodiment of this, she points to "Hale Kanaka Hou," a poem in the new anthology penned by the late Haunani Bernardino, a UH-Hilo professor of Hawaiian language who also helped in editing the 'ōlelo Hawai'i passages liberally sprinkled throughout "Ho'okupu." Sugano said Bernardino wrote the poem as an oli and tribute to a colleague who was being ordained as a deacon at a Hilo church. On the surface, the work is about this specific event, but its incantatory rhythm and majestic pace evoke the spiritual bricks and mortar of Hawaiian nation-building, as described in these lines: "May they come / may they dwell. / This house for the people is open. Indeed it lives."

Hale Kanaka Hou
by Haunani Bernardino

E nā kuauli, nā kualono, nā kuamo'o, nā kuanihi
Mai kekahi pae a i kekahi pae hou aku o Hawai'i mokupuni
Eia iho he hale hou, he hale kanaka, he hale wawā, he hale ola
Ua kua 'ia ke kumuuhiuhi
Ua paepae pa'a 'ia ke kahua i pōhaku nui me ka pōhaku li'ili'i
Ua kūkulu 'ia nā pou kihi me nā pou kukuna
Ua ki'ihei 'ia nā lohelau me nā pou hana
Ua 'aho 'ia nā o'a, ke kaupaku me ke kua'iole
Nā 'aho pueo, nā 'aho kele me nā 'aho hui
Ua ako 'ia ka mau'u pili me ka lauhala mai lalo a'e a i luna o ke ke'ehi
Ua 'oki miomio 'ia a ma'ema'e a pa'ihi wale
He hale i lako i ka moena lauhala, ka hīna'i 'ie'ie, ka pe'ahi launiu
Ka poho kukui, ka 'umeke lā'au a me ka 'umeke pōhue
He hale i ho'omākaukau 'ia ai ka i'a, ke kalo, ka 'uala, ka lū'au
Ka weke a me ka 'ama'ama
He hale i 'oki 'ia kona piko a hāmana ka ni'o
'O ka hale e kū, 'o ke kanaka e noho
He 'ōpū hālau a hewa nō, koe koena 'ole ma kū'ono
No laila e kūpipipi nā kanaka hele mai
E māhuahua aku he lau a he lau
E kipa mai nō, e komo mai a e noho mai
Ua noa ka hale kanaka hou nei
Aia ho'i ke ola nei ē.

Despite variety of character, tone and topic in "Ho'okupu," many of the contributors are saying that as Native Hawaiian women they share the same wellspring of inspiration. "I believe we bring to writing a genetic awareness of the grief of being Hawaiian and (coping with) the cultural loss, but the writing then becomes a purging … a cleansing and a way of finding some joy to over-ride the pain," said Tamara Wong-Morrison, a teacher in Volcano Village who penned two poems that appear in "Ho'okupu." True to Wong-Morrison's analysis, her work "Proper Offerings to Pele" expresses outrage over the desecration of sacred Pele sites, but then does a soulful U-turn into satire before delivering a compelling reminder that native spirituality is manifest in the works of nature and deserves the same reverence as man-made shrines that mark the famed spiritual centers of Asia.

Don't be surprised if similar feelings and ideas filter through Native Hawaiian women no matter how diverse their experiences are, notes Mahealani Perez-Wendt, the soon-to-be-retiring executive director for the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., whose compelling poems in "Ho'okupu" include "Hina"—a feminine love paean, and "Queenie," a character sketch of a Hawaiian woman, angry and mournful at her loss of ancestral land. While the two works are polar opposites in emotion, they both reflect similar creative impulses, common to Hawaiian women writers, Perez-Wendt told Ka Wai Ola Loa.

"Women speak for healing, for peacemaking, for birth and procreation. When you fold in issues of indigeneity, there is the polity, the collective, a reaching toward justice for all."

Writers and editors involved with the long-awaited publication of "Ho'okupu" had a unique opportunity to come together at a book launch held in August at UH-Hilo. "I was interested in doing outreach and making the work available to the community," said Sugano who used grant funding from the Hawai'i Council for the Humanities to support the event and cover the cost for videotaping the assemblage of featured writers reading from their works. The DVD is being finalized and should be available soon through amazon.com or by contacting Sugano at miyokos@hawaii.rr.com.

"Anyone who sees the DVD will see (the event) was truly a celebration," said Sugano, who doesn't anticipate that she and Johnson will be compiling a sequel to the 10-years-in-the-making anthology anytime soon. But the first edition seems to have legs of its own. Following the book launch, Sugano said the writers got busy pledging to stay in touch with another and perpetuate the spirit of the anthology. This could mean a headsup for local publishers: Writing by Native Hawaiian women as a genre has been born. As Sugano and Johnson originally envisioned, the joy of writing is the midwife.