Fast Talking Pi

Local Description

Fast Talking PI is the first ‘singular, confident and musical’ collection of poetry by Auckland writer Selina Tusitala Marsh. ‘Tusitala’ means writer of tales in Samoan, and Marsh here lives up to her name with stories of her life, her family, community, ancestry, and history. Her poetry is sensuous and strong, using lush imagery, clear rhythms and repetitions to power it forward. The list poem is a favourite style, but she also writes with a Pacific lyricism entirely her own.

Fast Talking PI is structured in three sections, ‘Tusitala (personal), ‘Talkback’ (political and historical) and ‘Fast Talking PI’ (already a classic). In poems like ‘Guys Like Gauguin’ she writes as a ‘calabash breaker’, fighting back against historic injustices; but in other poems she explores the idea of the calabash as the honoured vessel for identity and story. Ultimately, though, Marsh exhorts herself to ‘be nobody’s darling’, as a writer she is a self-proclaimed ‘darling in the margins’, and Fast Talking PI proves it – a generous work that will thrill readers; ‘a map in our arms / to get us over the reef’; and a tremendous first book.

Description

The judging panel found Marsh's collection exhilarating: "The poems are sensuous but strong, using lush imagery and clear rhythms and repetitions to power them forward." Touching on the poet's community, ancestry, influences, and history, this debut collection of poetry lives up to the meaning behind the artist's name--"writer of tales." The featured verse is sensuous but strong, using lush imagery, clear rhythms, and repetitions to power it forward.

Awards

Winner of New Zealand Society of Authors Best First Book Awards: Jessie Mackay Award for Poetry 2010.

Author description

Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tuvaluan, English, Scottish and French descent. She was the first Pacific Islander to graduate with a PhD in English from the University of Auckland and is now a lecturer in the English Department, specialising in Pasifika literature. Marsh is currently developing a Pasifika Poetry website in conjunction with the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre and working on a critical anthology of Pacific women poets writing in English, Ancient Banyans, Flying Foxes and White Ginger, based on her thesis. Her poetry has appeared in Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poetry in English, the Best New Zealand Poems website and in Niu Voices: Contemporary Pacific Fiction 1, which she edited. Her work deals specifically with issues that affect Pacific communities in New Zealand and indigenous peoples elsewhere, most recently focusing on the challenges and triumphs of being afakasi.