This past December, I was grateful to be a part of a series of poem videos that were released to commemorate the 5th Anniversary of the signing of the Paris Agreement. Five years ago, I was in Paris attending COP21, performing poetry on climate change alongside other poet activists while our RMI delegation which included late Senator and Minister of… Read More
Thoughts on climate and covid
What a weird and awful time in the world right now. When I moved back home to the Marshalls this past December, after three years of being based in Portland, Oregon, I never thought our country would suddenly be locked down, for months at a time, cut off from the rest of the world. I never thought I’d be grounded… Read More
Bulldozed Reefs and Blasted Sands: Rituals for Artificial Islands
Iakwe aolep – it’s been a while since my last blog post. Last year was hectic and instead of updating my blog alongside my social media I fell off the map after my journey to Enewetak. So to kick off this year’s blog posts I’d like to focus on coming to terms with a new piece of advice given to… Read More
After COP23: A Sevusevu in German Rain
It’s been over two weeks since I left COP23, and I’m only now beginning to unravel what I learned. When I started this blog post, it was meant to be a broad overview of this recent conference – but I ended up focused on one of our actions that began our trip: a traditional Fijian ceremony we held alongside… Read More
“Butterfly Thief” and Complex Narratives of Disappearing Islands
My latest poem video has finally been released. This was a simpler poem video than my last one (Islands Dropped from a Basket) created for the Honolulu Biennial this past February. “Butterfly Thief” was a poem that was curated by an energy company in London called Good Energy whose mission is to “is to transform the UK energy market by helping homes… Read More
On Marshallese Youth and COP21
If we, as a rimajel youth, were able to hold the world accountable, why can’t we hold our leaders in our country, our local council, our community members, even ourselves accountable as well? Why can’t we demand change, demand justice, or even just demand more – from everyone?