Creative Writing Commons^™

Village Princess, Tusiata Avia

Pacific Studies

This poem reflects on the tension between traditional cultural roles and personal freedom, using the figure of a taupou—an honored ceremonial title in Samoan culture—as a lens. The speaker contrasts their sister’s symbolic beauty and status with her eventual rejection of expectations, choosing instead a life of independence and reinvention in America. The shift from reverence to silence around titles suggests a broader commentary on changing values and the cost of self-determination.

Living Small, Kim Meredith

Pacific Studies

This story traces Luisa’s quiet reflections during a bus ride through the city and into the suburbs, blending present experiences with vivid memories of a full, familial past. As she recalls life with her husband in her grandparents’ home and her grandmother’s moving speech at her university graduation, we see Luisa grappling with the contrast between her youthful dreams and her current life. Her grandmother once called her “a dreamer” and supported her late-night intellectual curiosity, forging a bond that shaped Luisa’s path. When a coworker sits beside her on the bus, Luisa is drawn back into the present, revealing …

Manōwai, Victoria Nālani Kneubuhl

Pacific Studies

This story follows Kanoe, a woman who retreats to rural Kona to recover from an emotionally abusive relationship with Frank, a manipulative academic. Through journal-like reflections and quiet moments in the heat-soaked coastal town, Kanoe processes her heartbreak and rediscovers herself. Her interactions with locals—particularly the wise and warm-hearted Luisa—reveal a rhythm of life grounded in history, resilience, and a subtle but profound sense of healing. As Kanoe begins writing again and exploring her surroundings, her journey shifts from escape to restoration, where stories, memory, and new connections light the path forward.

It Began With A Question, Konai Helu Thaman

Pacific Studies

This poem reflects a quiet, profound moment of surrender and trust. Rooted in timelessness and uncertainty, the speaker is called into action not by clarity, but by faith. Despite feeling disconnected from place and time, they answer a rare question with a brave "yes," grounding themselves in something enduring—a rock that "noticed" them. It’s a meditation on belonging, voice, and hope whispered into a weary world.

The Night Woman, Sia Figiel

Pacific Studies

This evocative poem honors the resilience, knowledge, and sacred power of the “Night Woman”—a symbolic figure who endures judgment and violence from the dominant “Day People.” Though wounded, she hides her pain behind silence and laughter, carrying ancient wisdom of the natural and cosmic world. In a transformative act at the ocean’s edge, she sheds societal expectations (“Day Skin”) to embrace her true self, birthing new generations whose identities are written in the stars. It’s a lyrical celebration of hidden strength, ancestral legacy, and feminine sovereignty.

Diagnosis, Caroline Sinavaiana

Pacific Studies

This poem captures a moment of tense uncertainty, likely surrounding a medical diagnosis revealed by ultrasound. The natural imagery—sea of shadows, swaying grass, warring rain and wind—mirrors the speaker’s emotional turbulence. Faced with a 50/50 prognosis, they turn inward, preparing for struggle or protection by invoking ancestral strength, symbolized by “ancient arrows” and a tightened bowstring. It’s a poetic meditation on fear, resilience, and readiness in the face of potential loss.

Waimanalo Litany, Caroline Sinavaiana

Pacific Studies

This elegiac poem, “Waimanalo Litany,” written in memory of Mahealani Dudoit, is a lyrical meditation on loss, healing, and the sacred presence of place. With vivid imagery of ocean, land, and ancestral spirits, the poet weaves a prayerful plea for mercy and peace across beloved Pacific landscapes. The repeated invocations to the spirits of moana, Koʻolau, Makapuʻu, and Waimānalo evoke a sense of cultural rootedness and spiritual continuity, even amid physical pain and environmental disruption. It is both a personal tribute and a collective chant of remembrance.

My Pigeon, From The Samoan, Caroline Sinavaiana

Pacific Studies

This poem is a lyrical elegy expressing love, longing, and loss through the metaphor of a pigeon in flight. Rooted in Samoan tradition, it evokes a deep emotional landscape where nature mirrors the ache of separation. The forest becomes both a literal and symbolic space of mystery and mourning, as the speaker watches and waits in vain for a beloved who has disappeared. Through its gentle cadence and sensory imagery, the poem captures the enduring ache of absence and the hope—however faint—that love might return on silent wings.

Not Exotic, Lisa Kahaleole Hall

Pacific Studies

This sensual poem explores desire and self-discovery through the metaphor of mangoes—ripe, tart, messy, and irresistible. The speaker recalls the intense flavors and sensations of mango eating, paralleling them with a complex, bold woman who resists sweetness in favor of spice. It captures the tension between sharp edges and tender longing in a relationship that ripens slowly, but promises depth and heat in time.

Niudity (I-Iv), Teresia Teaiwa

Pacific Studies

The "Niudity" poem sequence by Teresia Teaiwa explores the layered metaphor of the coconut (niu) to reflect on identity, vulnerability, and postcolonial femininity in Oceania. The poems interweave bodily imagery with cultural symbolism—where the coconut’s husk, shell, and flesh represent stages of exposure, resilience, and inner worth. In playful yet poignant verse, Teaiwa deconstructs the idea of nudity into niudity—a state shaped not just by nakedness, but by misrecognition, resistance, and cultural disguise. Her fictional dictionary entries parody colonial linguistic authority while empowering indigenous reinterpretation. The final poem subverts expectations with sharp commentary on exploitation, voice, and …

Woven Worlds, Konai Helu Thaman

Pacific Studies

This poem beautifully portrays the act of weaving—both literal and metaphorical—as a shared practice of memory, creativity, and cultural continuity. The speaker reflects on how hands, once weaving traditional materials like voivoi (pandanus), now craft art through movement and color. Together, the weavers form a collective bond, connecting generations and geographies in a creative act that honors ancestral legacy and reimagines the world through shared expression.

2nd Stanza, "Samoa," From Meet You In Hawaiki, Rosanna Raymond

Pacific Studies

An image of a woman with a poem.

The Arc And The Sediment, Christine Allen-Yazzie

All USU Press Publications

Gretta Bitsilly, gin-steeped mother of two and self-proclaimed expert at standing outside the margins of ethnicity and peering in, has been all but eclipsed by the world that eludes her--as a wife, a writer, a skeptic in "the other land of Zion," Utah. Gretta has set off to Fort Defiance, Arizona, where she hopes to convince her Navajo husband, who has escaped not from his family but from alcoholism, to come home.

Over a sputtering two-steps-forward, one-step-back desert journey, Gretta is diverted by chance, seizures, an inconstant memory, and the disjointed character of her irresolute quest.

She is fueled by …

The Feast Of First Mourning, Sumeia Williams

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

No abstract provided.

L’Historiographie Positiviste Au Miroir De La Fiction Littéraire, Kasereka Kavwahirehi

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In its study of L’Écart by V.Y. Mudimbe, this article examines the critical and ironic mirroring of the discourses of the social sciences. By highlighting the pretensions of scientific discourse, Mudimbe’s fiction reveals the ambiguity and the limits of positivist methodology in a postcolonial context.

Hannah Arendt, Boris Diop Et Le Rwanda : Correspondances Et Commencements, Isabelle Favre

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

While the social and political sciences account for a relatively large number of books on the 1994 Rwandan genocide, there are still very few literary texts on the subject. Taking Hannah Arendt’s concept of beginning as its point of departure, this article begins with an analysis of the “act of writing” before going on to examine the dynamic interplay between philosophy and literature via Boris Boubacar Diop’s novel Murambi, le livre des ossements (2000).

L’Inscription Du Corps Dans Quatre Romans Postcoloniaux D’Afrique, Augustine H. Asaah

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

More and more, contemporary African literature dwells on the body —as the subject and object of desire, as a refuge and as a commodified and objectified victim. Using as reference points four novels —Calixthe Beyala’s C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée and Femme nue, femme noire, Williams Sassine’s Mémoire d’une peau and Nimrod’s Les jambes d’Alice— all of which inscribe the body onto and into the text, this article seeks to analyse diverse manifestations of the textualized body. Works of alienation and dispossession, these four texts also focus on corporeal quests for equilibrium. The presence of the body in the …

Faire Taire Les Silences Du Corps Noir, Cilas Kemedjio

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

From the middle passage to modern day red light districts, from human zoos to the “compassionate” forum of the TV screen, the display of the black body has long formed the narrative thread of a monologue uttered by a West pleased with the sound of its own voice. The staging of the black body can be said to have rendered black voices silent, and this study sets out to break this silence.

De L’Écriture Romanesque Comme Traversée Et La Maghrébinité, Kasereka Kavwahirehi

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This essay explores how some “Maghrebian” novelists represent and problematize their relation to “Maghrebness” or “maghrebinité”. Using postcolonial theory and Réda Bensmaia's Alger ou La maladie de la mémoire, the author shows how problematic the concept of “Maghrebian literature” can be when one considers its transnational and transcultural poetics and its de-territorialization.

Ahmadou Kourouma Et La Genèse Tragique L’Événement Postcolonial Dans En Attendant Le Vote Des Bêtes Sauvages Et Allah N’Est Pas Obligé, Étienne-Marie Lassi

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article studies the birth and manifestations of the tragic in Ahmadou Kourouma’s fiction. It demonstrates how the tragic in Kourouma’s novels, far from being a metaphysical feeling, stems from social realities and is closely related to the postcolonial system. In these novels, tragedy goes beyond the realistic depiction of catastrophic events and is further articulated in the characters’ political attitudes, their social life and cultural behaviour.

Discours De La Sexualité Et Postmodernisme Littéraire Africain, Adama Coulibaly

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Representations of sex in the black Africa postcolonial novel often strike us because of their centrality and coarseness. Using examples from three texts (Cannibale; L'État honteux; Les naufragés de l'intelligence), this article examines the manifestation and mainly the motivation of what seems like inappropriate outbursts. In this transcultural approach (beyond the intertextual), the aggressiveness of the sexuality discourse allows the novel to be linked to the large movement of postmodernism. This strategy of “textual extravagance” represents a society that “lacks substance”, a society of pretence, in the � � Baudrillardian�

Haïti Et Sa Diaspora Ou Le Pays En Dehors, Marie-Hélène Koffi-Tessio

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The article looks at the causes of large migratory movements in Haiti. Anthropologist Gérard Barthélemy suggests that emigration from the countryside stems from aspects of rural society, namely the need to accumulate wealth to start one’s own production unit and the need to chase out those who will not stick to and perpetuate the rules of the community. However, according to Jean Métellus and Jean-Claude Icart, migration movements are tightly linked to political and historical upheavals, which force people out of the country in search of safety and survival. For many migrants, the consequence is a feeling of loss and …

Le Fou, Le Rebelle, L’Enfant Et La Révolution Haïtienne, Gilbert Doho

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The proliferation of fools in independent African nations’ capitals and major cities should have entailed profound analyses. The period after 1804 in Haiti and after 1960 for Africa is marked by irrationality. From this point of view, Aimé Césaire, doom prophet, uses the Haitian past to warn newly independent African nations. The attempt to understand the phenomena has so far been based on psychoanalysis and other euro-centric methods. In this paper, we will attempt to centre our approach on the gaze and thought of the lunatics themselves in order to understand the madness that has taken hold of post-colonial periods. …

Satire, Désordre, Folie Et Régénérescence : Lecture De Quelques Romans Africains, Augustin H. Asaah

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Satire has the goal of reforming society and humans through the exposure and denunciation of evils. Using four novels, Beyala’s Tu t’appelleras Tanga, Touré’s Destins parallèles, Ken Bugul’s La folie et la mort and Nganang’s Tempsde chien as reference points, this article attempts to demonstrate how postcolonial Francophone African satire meets the criteria of the sub-genre. The four works deploy weapons of satire such as irony, contrast, verbal violence and exaggeration to lay bare the stench, madness and degeneration associated with neo-colonial order. As in all satirical works, the tableau of collective misery here encompasses a challenge to readers to …

Par-Delà Le Chaos : Aube Tranquille De Jean-Claude Fignolé, Lucienne J. Serrano

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article analyses how Fignolé’s book puts into words an unbearable state sprung from the chaos of slavery. This is an oxymoronic writing experience, because how can the unspeakable be named? Writing is not thought here, but rather a driving force digging into an intimate movement of rebellion and using language in a glib form, free from conscious meaning and logic, in order to reveal a preconscious meaning. The writer then becomes an archaeologist of pain. He tries to transcribe the scream in splintered space and time, so that memory finds landmarks once again. Writing thus becomes an experience aiming …

Au Seuil Du Chaos : Devoir De Mémoire, Indicible Et Piège Du Devoir Dire, Issac Bazié

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

That literature has not entirely lost its means when faced with great human tragedies is a fact widely debated when it comes to the Holocaust. This text relies on a discussion of the unspeakable in order to reflect on the texts written about Rwanda’s genocide. Reading those texts’ thresholds reveals a tension of writing between history and fiction, “devoir de mémoire” and near resignation of speech.

Discours Préfaciels Et Réception En Littérature Africaine De Langue Française, Sélom Komlan Gbanou

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Decisive instance between the text and its reader, the preface plays an important role in the reception of the literary work, as Gerard Genette emphasizes in his essay Seuils (1987). The present analysis proposes a reading of the stategies used in the prefaces of francophone African Literature from colonial times to the present. Who introduces whom? Why and how? These are a few of the questions this article deals with.

De L’Aliénation À La Libération, Alexie Tcheuyap

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This essay addresses the issue of education in pre and post-colonial Africa. It examines the ideological discourses, challenges and consequences associated with the adoption of western education in African countries. Based on novels and films, some of which are set in universities, the article analyses the effects of violence and irrelevant syllabi on African education, and argues that in order for knowledge to serve as a tool for real liberation, it has to be relevant to the social environment. It contends further that, paradoxically, even colonial education can contribute towards the liberation of Africans from some problematic aspects of their …

[Introduction To] From Within The Frame: Storytelling In African-American Studies, Bertram D. Ashe

Bookshelf

The book explores the written representation of African-American oral storytelling from Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston and Ralph Ellison to James Alan McPherson, Toni Cade Bambara and John Edgar Wideman. At its core, the book compares the relationship of the "frame tale" - an inside-the-text storyteller telling a tale to an inside-the-text listener - with the relationship between the outside-the-text writer and reader. The progression is from Chesnutt's 1899 frame texts, in which the black spoken voice is contained by a white narrator/listener, to Bambara's sixties-era example of a "frameless" spoken voice text, to Wideman's neo-frame text of the late …

Passing As Danzy Senna, Bertram D. Ashe, Danzy Senna

English Faculty Publications

Caucasia, written by Danzy Senna, is part of a growing sub-genre of African-American novels, some of which announce their themes by their titles: White Boys, by Reginald McKnight; The White Boy Shuffle, by Paul Beatty; The Last Integrationist, by Jake Lamar; and Negrophobia, by Darius James, to name a few. Caucasia is a "Post-Soul" novel that explores the world of "mullatos" - both cultural and racial. But even though artists such as Kara Walker, photographer Lorna Simpson, and essayist Lisa Jones also explore the vicissitudes of post-Civil Rights Movement Black identity, in Black fiction its …