In his introduction to Poetry Magazine’s recent Oceania section, scholar and poet Craig Santos Perez notes that 70 percent of Pacific Islanders “live in Hawai’i and the western part of the U.S,” as well as in “every state and territory.” Guided by present-day writers as well as words from the ancients, we’ll get to know the poetry, stories, and histories of our Pacific Island neighbors. We'll begin our course by listening to Samoan, Chamorro, and Hawaiian poets; we’ll close with tales of Pele, goddess of fire and volcanoes, and Kamapua’a—a being who could appear as a hog or as a human—from the Hawaiian creation story, The Kumulipo. In between, we’ll read the contemporary novel Melal by Robert Barclay, set in the Marshall Islands. Through critical readings in Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art, we'll learn why eternal trickster figures like Kamapua’a in Hawaii or Etao in the Marshall Islands remain essential to the literature and lives of Pacific peoples. Select contextual readings and viewings will focus on the ongoing legacy of colonialism and atomic testing in the Pacific; the art and science of navigation known as Wayfinding; builders of islands—the tiny coral polyp and the fierce volcano; and orature, the oral art that has carried myths and legends for thousands of years, at once preserving cultures, and entertaining and educating listeners, ourselves among them.

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