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Poets amplify
South Pacific issuesTerenesia Teresia Teaiwa and Sia Figiel (Hawaii Dub Machine HDM 'Elepaio Press 0050)
By John Berger Sia Figiel's perspective on growing up in a colonial environment is one of the topics she explores in "Terenesia," the landmark album of amplified (with music) poetry she recorded with poet Teresia Teaiwa.
Special to the Star-BulletinThe topics on this disc are diverse: Self-awareness, love, sex, cultural alienation, the toxic legacy of nuclear testing, and memories of a time when Samoans were exhibited in a Berlin zoo.
The work took two years to complete because she and Teaiwa were never able to come up from the South Pacific -- Samoa and New Zealand respectively -- at the same time.
That makes their performance tonight at the Church of the Crossroads special indeed. Figiel and Teaiwa are marking the official release of "Terenesia" and Hamasaki's new book, "From The Spider Bone Diaries: Poems And Songs" today. Hamasaki describes the two self-styled "salty sirens" as "incredibly talented." They return the assessment.
Hamasaki, on bass, produced the disc along with H. Doug Matsuoka (keyboards). Both help to embellish the women's words and the textures of their voices with a challenging pallet of melodies, rhythms and sonic effects.
On stage
"This kind of collaboration is rare, certainly in Pacific literature, so that's what makes it exciting for us to work with artists like Richard and Doug," Teaiwa says.
"Doing the recordings we had a clear idea of what kind of effects they were going for but we recorded heaps and heaps of things. I trusted Richard and Doug completely and so even if I was surprised by some of their choices I think they were very aware of the differences between Sia and me and how our personalties and voices played off against each other."
She adds that while amplified poetry is a recognized art form in the United States, it is relatively new "south of Hawaii."
"New Zealand is sort of the cutting edge of Polynesian cultural production. There's a lot of (Maori language) hip-hop and reggae stuff happening but they haven't done any spoken word or poetry on CD like this (so) people in New Zealand are quite excited about it."
"Young people don't think of issues like colonialism (as subjects for poetry)," poet Sia Figiel says.
Hopefully, the womens' arresting verse about such topics will inspire others here to find fresh forms of original expression.
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