Hafa adai, aloha.
Good evening.
I want to first acknowledge and recognize
the Indigenous peoples of this land
as well as the Indigenous writers who
have storied this land for thousands of years.
I want to also thank Tyler and the whole crew at the Poetry
Center.
I'm so honored to be here; traveled a long way
to engage with the students, to check out
this amazing building, and to share my work with you today.
On that note, thank you for coming tonight.
I know, during severe weather as we have tonight,
most people are inclined to hunker down
with your canned meats and your loved ones.
But I'm glad you kind of braved the weather
and joined us for tonight's festivities.
So I don't get to come to the continental US
very often since I moved to Hawaii a few years ago.
So I'm very excited to be here.
I come from a place that is colonized by the US.
And so there are things about America
that I don't necessarily enjoy.
One thing I do enjoy, however, about this great nation
is their foods.
They have delicious foods.
And so I'm going to share with you
tonight three poems from my new book, which is on sale--
no refunds-- about three of my favorite American foods or kind
of like odes to my three favorite foods.