“To Breathe the Akua”: Aloha ‘Āina in the Poetry and Activism of Haunani-Kay Trask

Abstract

Haunani-Kay Trask’s scholarship and poetry grew out of her profound understanding that the moʻolelo, chants, and songs about the akua, the deities who are the elemental energies, recorded ancestral knowledges that would inspire the lāhui to move forward into the decolonial future. Her poetry moved to decenter a history of settler colonialism, instead articulating a Kānaka Maoli worldview that recognizes that the akua are still here, even if their names had been forgotten by many. Dr. Trask’s own aloha ʻāina activism informs her poetry as she stood to protect her home on the edge of the Heʻeia wetlands from the development of a golf course, and the fishpond stands today, feeding the people physically, spiritually, and imaginatively.