I. Definitions of mo'o Maunakea -- About the effects of shedding skin -- Welcome to the gut house -- Eggs -- He mo'o, he wahine -- Kino -- Mo'olelo is the theory -- My grandma tells -- Memory as missionary position -- How to swallow a colonizer -- Catalogue of gossip, warnings & other talk of mo'o, aka an `oiwi abecedarian' -- Don't have sex with gods -- When you say "protestors" instead of "protectors" -- II. Definitions of mo'o -- Iwi hilo means thigh bone means core of one's being -- Maui county fair -- In search of a different ending -- Mercy -- Ex is a verb -- After she leaves you, femme -- Lessons in quarantine -- So sacred, so queer -- Adze-shaped rain -- III. Erasure triptych ai -- Sirens out -- Aloha -- IV. Definitions of mo'o Thirst traps -- Myth bitch -- Getting ready for work -- For sisters who pray with fire -- Dirtiest grand -- The opposite of dispossession is not possession; it is connection -- Theea of enough -- Fire in Makena -- Recovery, Waikiki -- New patient form -- medical history -- creative option -- Preparing Ka'uiki -- Basket -- Shapeshifters banned, censored, or otherwise shit-listed, aka chosen family poem.
Summary:
"Ask the Brindled, selected by Rick Barot as a winner of the 2021 National Poetry Series, bares everything that breaks between 'seed' and 'summit' of a life-the body, a people, their language. It is an intergenerational reclamation of the narratives foisted upon Indigenous and queer Hawaiians-and it does not let readers look away"--
