Doug Poole is of Samoan (Ulberg Aiga of Tula’ele, Apia, Upolo) and European descent. He resides in Waitakere City, Auckland. He is the current e-publisher and editor of poetry e-zine Blackmail Press.
Doug has been published in Niu Voices – Contemporary Pacific Fiction 2006 published by Huia Publishers. Landfall 218 edited by David Eggleton, Sidestream, edited by Miriam Barr.
In 2010 Doug was published in the University of Hawaii’s, Contemporay Pacific, a special issue honouring Albert Wendt edited by Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh and Teresia Teaiwa and Mauri Ola - Contemporary Polynesian Poetry in English, edited by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan.
Pouliuli 23
I am no longer a part of you Samoa
The sun has set on my “half caste” blood
no longer yearn for you
You speak in rhyme and talk of
skin – no room for the “Afa kasi”
I used to tell you this – I am Samoan
It was my birth right to claim my
Grandmother’s Samoan Heart
Call Tula’ele home
recalling cousins crowded around
The Fale Palagi to see
The white boy
The white skin
The Afakasi - Shouting palagi palagi palagi
I have no inheritance the land is gone
My grandmother is gone
no feet to place in the soil of my Aiga(?)
It is gone so I am walking
I tell my children
they do not know who you are & where you come from
calling to peers to
see me hear me perform with me accept me
crying to ancestors
why did you forsake me in this skin?
“Half caste” is lost; is sinking; is nothing!
Afakasi is phony pepelo mule – liar!
Has no claim to title no place to plant
No fale to burn no land to yearn
I do not belong to your world
I am Pouliuli; papelo; I am Ulupe
I wear my Samoan Heart, I wear it well.
So, let me ask you this
What is Palagi? What is Afakasi?
