Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter

by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner

Overview

As the seas rise, the fight intensifies to save the Pacific Ocean’s Marshall Islands from being devoured by the waters around them. At the same time, activists are raising their poetic voices against decades of colonialism, environmental destruction, and social injustice.

Marshallese poet and activist Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner’s writing highlights the traumas of colonialism, racism, forced migration, the legacy of American nuclear testing, and the impending threats of climate change. Bearing witness at the front lines of various activist movements inspires her work and has propelled her poetry onto international stages, where she has performed in front of audiences ranging from elementary school students to more than a hundred world leaders at the United Nations Climate Summit.

The poet connects us to Marshallese daily life and tradition, likening her poetry to a basket and its essential materials. Her cultural roots and her family provides the thick fiber, the structure of the basket. Her diasporic upbringing is the material which wraps around the fiber, an essential layer to the structure of her experiences. And her passion for justice and change, the passion which brings her to the front lines of activist movements—is the stitching that binds these two experiences together.

Iep Jāltok will make history as the first published book of poetry written by a Marshallese author, and it ushers in an important new voice for justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816534029
Publisher:	University of Arizona Press
Publication date:	02/14/2017
Series:	Sun Tracks , #80
Pages:	90
Sales rank:	394,762
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a Marshallese writer. She is co-founder of the nonprofit organization Jo-Jikum, which empowers youth to work toward solutions on environmental issues threatening their home islands.

Table of Contents

Iep Jaltok

Basket 4

Loktariur 6

Liwatuonmour 8

Lidepdepju 9

Ettolok Ilikin Lometo 10

History Project

Hooked 14

The letter B is for 19

History Project 20

Fishbone Hair 24

Lessons From Hawai'i

Flying to Makiki Street 34

My Rosy Cousin 36

To Laura Ingalls Wilder 37

Bursts of Bianca 39

On the Couch with Bubu Neien 42

Lessons from Hawai'i 45

The Monkey Gate 50

Lost at Sea 53

Crash 54

Last Days in the Bay 56

Tell Them

Spoken Marshallese Lesson Nine 58

Just a Rock 59

Campaigning in Aur 60

Tell Them 64

Lavender Saltwater 68

Dear Matafele Peinam 70

There's a Journalist Here 74

Two Degrees 76

Basket 80

Editorial Reviews

01/16/2017
Through a poetics of resistance, Jetnil-Kijiner bears witness to the atrocities suffered by the inhabitants of the central Pacific Marshall Islands. As the first published Marshallese poet, Jetnil-Kijiner addresses in a woman’s voice pressing themes surrounding the Marshalls, such as nuclear testing, militarism, rising sea levels, and racism. Renewing the archipelago’s matrilineal traditions, Jetnil-Kijiner presents women’s stories—from her mother, grandmother, herself, and others—to re-center an indigenous feminist contemplation and resistance against state-sanctioned violence. In the poem “History Project,” she recalls the history of nuclear testing in the islands through her own memory of researching it as a teenager; the fate of the project echoes that of the islands. Moreover, these poems bear witness through the body, which figures prominently. As Jetnil-Kijiner writes “your/ body/ is a country/ we conquer/ and devour.” She reclaims body and poetry through utilization of lyrical, visual, and narrative modalities, adding to the growing body of Pacific Islander poetics. Reclaiming the Marshallese symbol of “a basket whose opening is facing the speaker,” which is also used to describe female children, the collection begins and ends with two versions of the title poem. Breaking the white space of the page, Jetnil-Kijiner’s words trace the outline of an open basket; one thread testifies, and the other concludes with a dream: “dreamt// my words// were// a current// flowing// to greet you.” Against visions of a rising tide, Jetnil-Kijiner offers healing and justice through language. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Against visions of a rising tide, Jetnil-Kijiner offers healing and justice through language.”—Publishers Weekly

 “Iep Jaltok asks not only to be read again and again, but also that the reader hear its voice resound beyond the printed covers.”—Full Stop

“Iep Jaltok reveals a poet who—in her first book—has already found her voice, who draws her poetic power from her islands, her culture, and her people’s history.”—Rain Taxi Review of Books

“Jetnil-Kijiner succeeds at making the personal political, and she does so with passion, originality, and grace.”—Hakai Magazine

“At once gentle, lamenting, and instructive as well as harsh, factual, and poignant, narrating the broadest of Marshallese stories from innocent paradise to nuclear fallout zone.”—World Literature Today

“Jetnil-Kijiner’s poems are often about many things at once. Her writing process often starts with extensive research, including talking to elders. She’ll often weave Marshallese legends, history and traditions into the poems, as well as science and statistics, and her own experiences.”—The International Examiner
 
“This moving debut should be admired, relished, and read in classrooms far and wide. It provides a rich and detailed survey of Marshallese pasts, presents, and futures told through one insightful activist’s study of history, linked with her personal experiences.”—Transmotion

“This intriguing collection provides a Marshallese perspective on contemporary life, family, politics of land tenure, indigenous rights, and a troubled and troubling American history in the Pacific.”—Heid E. Erdrich, author of Cell Traffic
 
“In this stunning debut collection, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner weaves a basket of poems that carry the beauty, depth, and resiliency of her Marshallese culture. Through lyrical, narrative, and visual modes, the poet gives voice to how nuclear testing, migration, racism, and climate change have impacted her family and her people. At the same time, she offers a vision of hope that the future will be a place in which our children—and humanity itself—will thrive.”—Craig Santos Perez, author of from unincorporated territory [guma']

“A book to be read slowly. Savored. Admired for its precision of language and emotion.”—Alice Walker

From the Publisher