“Tell Me a Story” by Tagi Qolouvaki
Thank you for contributing your encouraging words, dreams and desires to the Wishing Tree. It is assured that if you affirm your beliefs habitually, they will come true 😀 This interactive installation was part of my Pacific Literature assignment at the University of Auckland (ENG204).
Thank you all for your curiosity — explanation & photos coming soon. This poem by Tagi Qolouvaki is about cultural identity and is the inspiration behind the Wishing Tree:
“Tell Me a Story”
by Tagi Qolouvaki
He vows I am planted beneath the Frangipani
Promises I am seed beneath the Bua.
He has his father’s tongue,
Owns his mother’s languages.
They sing honeyed songs together.
He has even tamed the palangi one –
It rides his tongue
And he is fertile with story.
Deftly, he weaves tales
Like the finest mats
Constructs memories
Tapa-tapestries
Stained in soil and
Coloured with song.
We store them, Cultural currency for the next birth
Death and wedding.
We carry them
To make us
Real.
He is a teller of tall tales, Talanoa
But what are stories if not lies
Though sweet as vakalolo
Cleaved to our fingers
Floating our souls
In the fat of coconut?
What are memories if not construction:
The storyteller as tattooist
Marking
And not marking
Brown skin.
And They say
If your pito-pito is unplanted
You will wander
They say
If it is unplanted
Home will elude you
Well mine is buried in story
Planted in a tall tale
And I wander
Yes,
And home is a story
Home is a story where the Frangipani flowers.
Qolouvaki, Tagi. “Tell Me a Story.”Mauri ola: Contemporary Polynesia Poems in English: WHETU MOANA II. Eds. Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri, Robert Sullivan. New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 2010. 185-186. Print.
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