I just returned from a trip to Minnesota, where I had been asked by the non-profit Climate Generation to perform for their 10 year anniversary benefit dinner. Initially, I was meant to just speak. But I decided, kind of as a creative challenge, to volunteer to write them a new poem that would connect the issues of climate change in… Read More
#noDAPL
I’ve been following what’s been happening in Dakota, reading updates from Dallas Goldtooth’s facebook profile, saving links and reading them when I can. If time/money/baby permitted, I’d love to be out there fighting alongside these tribes who are standing for something so purely simple – clean water. The lack of media attention is shocking also. In one of the articles I… Read More
Glass Marbles and Mutual Inspiration
About a month ago, our non-profit Jo-Jikum organized our first ever Jo-Jikum Climate Change Arts Camp. The camp brought together over 30 high school students to the College of the Marshall Islands. During the one week camp, our art and poet instructors taught students how to harness . We drew inspiration from presentations on climate change effects on our islands… Read More
Fishbone Hair (Full Poem+Video)
“Fishbone Hair” is a poem that was written after the death of my niece, Bianca Lanki, who passed away from leukemia when she was only 8 years old. It’s a reflection on the many Marshallese who’ve passed away from cancer, and other radiation related illnesses, and the legacy of the US nuclear testing program on our islands. It’s a… Read More
On Birthing New Life, and Fresh Possibilities
*originally published on The Elders website to coincide with a blog post by Mary Robinson, former Ireland president and climate activist, for International Women’s Day. Here in the Marshall Islands, International Women’s Day immediately follows a national holiday. On March 1, Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day commemorates the legacy of US nuclear testing on our islands. As these two events collide, I find… Read More
Poem: 2 Degrees
Last month CNN reporter John Sutter came down asking me to write a piece about the importance of the 2 degree number to climate change, as a part of his series on 2 degrees: http://edition.cnn.com/specials/opinions/two-degrees I agreed to do it – with a little spin of my own, by challenging the 2 degrees estimate, which actually places more islands under… Read More
