Night Is a Sharkskin Drum

by Haunani-Kay Trask

Night Is a Sharkskin Drum is a lyrical evocation of Hawaii by a Native poet whose ancestral land has been scarred by tourism, the American military, and urbanization. Grounded in the ancient grandeur and beauty of Hawaii, this collection is a haunted and haunting love song for a beloved homeland under assault.

Genres: Poetry, Indigenous, Nonfiction, History, American

88 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2002

About the author

Haunani-Kay Trask was a Hawaiian activist, educator, author, and poet. She served as leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and was professor emeritus at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Reviews

[Ceallaigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

“On the breast of the rain
a passionate sea

longing for flight

and the voyaging sun
in coral waters beyond.

My spangled hair
wanders toward light:

a sudden waterfall
of stars.”

— from “Shipwrecked on the Shallows of the Stars”

TITLE—Night is a Sharkskin Drum
AUTHOR—Haunani-Kay Trask
PUBLISHED—2002
PUBLISHER—University of Hawai’i Press

GENRE—21st c. Hawaiian poetry
SETTING—Hawai’i
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—kānaka Hawai’i, Hawai’i history & culture, indigenous lifeways & spirituality, ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i, how culture & language is inextricably tied to the land, ‘āina & the living earth, Pele & other akua, tourism, american imperialism, political propaganda, military industrialism, the inhumanity & aspirituality of haole tourism & settler colonialism, critique of neoliberalism, nā ‘ōiwi & radical existence, mission Christianity & the usurpation of indigenous spiritual traditions, the “democracy of colonies”, love & passion, spiritual embodiment, joyful lushness & divine fecundity

“Escape: the currency
of travel, lure
of colonies. How strange
the strangers'

ways. White-skinned
hominids burning pink
against indigenous brown,
traveling the blessed

isles in aimless journeys.”

— from “Dispossessions of Empire”

Summary:
"The experience of reading this collection is nothing short of swimming in fire. . . Night Is a Sharkskin Drum is a testament to Trask's poetic mana. With these poems, she shows us once more that despite the ugliness she has seen, the ugliness that has pierced her, stabbed her, wounded her, scarred her and her people, there is beauty still." — Sia Figiel

My thoughts:
The last time I was in Hawai’i (in October of 2018), I stopped by the University of Hawai’i bookstore to browse the shelves for the required texts for the Hawaiian history, language, and literature courses. I picked up this collection of Haunani-Kay Trask’s poetry and read it while we drove (Scott drove, I rode) along the coastline of Oahu trying to find a less-crowded beach to spend my free day at. As it happens, I wasn’t in Hawai’i that time for pleasure but for a work conference. However, since it was the fourth or fifth time I had visited the islands, and all the previous times *had* been as a tourist, the awakening I got while reading Trask’s poems about settler colonialism and the ravages the tourism industry was perpetuating against the indigenous people and their sacred lands, while long overdue, was a much-needed lesson.

Especially since we were unable to find a non-crowded beach. The traffic, the crowds (even in October), the chain restaurants, the lack of places untouched by corporate agriculture, the american military, and settler capitalism, were all there in front of my eyes as I read about the grief and violence of Hawai’i’s history of being illegally occupied by the united states.

Since that last trip, I have spent a lot more time reading about this subject and thinking about my travels and considering how I can travel much more ethically moving forward. I’m not sure that there is a way to travel ethically while the effects of american & british imperialism continue to have such a devastating effect on many nations throughout the world, but being mindful about where my money goes and the impact my being in those places has on the native communities is my absolute priority before making any plans in the future. And if it’s best for me to stay home (see Jamaica Kincaid’s A SMALL PLACE), then that is what I fully intend to do.

Haunani-Kay Trask doesn’t just write about grief and anger, though, in this collection, she also writes sensually and lovingly about indigenous lifeways and spirituality and the land which glows like a warm but gentle sunlight from the pages, especially in the latter half of this collection.

Rereading this collection while beginning my study of ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i has also been a wonderful and eye-opening experience. Here is a quote I have found from Alberta Pualani Hopkins’s KA LEI HA’AHEO that speaks to the main theme of this project for me:

“In learning a second language, it is important to recognize that each language has its own reality directly based on the culture that it expresses; in other words, Hawaiian is not just another code for English, but a way of expressing Hawaiian ideas and values and a Hawaiian view of the way the world is organized and works.”

I am developing a deep appreciation for this inextricable connection between the language and the land and learning about how the Hawaiian worldview informs the way the language functions and fosters a deeper connection to the natural world of which nā kānaka maoli are an intrinsic part.

I would recommend this book to readers who have ever traveled to or lived in colonized places, so that they might learn and grow. And to readers who are native of colonized lands so that they may feel seen and know that they are seen. This book is best read with thoughtfulness and humility, and with a Hawaiian dictionary on hand—I have had wehewehe.org recommended to me and it is fantastic.

Final note: Indigenous sovereignty continues to be something that is of utmost importance to me and which I strongly believe is the only way forward for the peoples of this planet and so I will continue to read and learn and grow towards that. 🫶🏻

“Comrades follow
over the constant waves.

Blue, now gold
a great honu follows.

Beyond the leaping
point, our souls
depart.

More beautiful still.”

— “Together”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Season: dusk & dawn—& Pō Mahina

CW // imperialism, war, colonialism, genocide, desecration of the sacred (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—
- everything else by Haunani-Kay Trask
- Haunani-Kay Trask’s LIGHT IN THE CREVICE NEVER SEEN—TBR
- ASK THE BRINDLED by No’u Revilla
- A SMALL PLACE by Jamaica Kincaid
- ISLANDS OF DECOLONIAL LOVE: STORIES & SONGS by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson—TBR
- AS WE HAVE ALWAYS DONE: INDIGENOUS FREEDOM THROUGH RADICAL RESISTANCE by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson—TBR
- DETOURS: A DECOLONIAL GUIDE TO HAWAI’I edited by Hokulani K. Aikau and Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez—TBR
- INDIGENOUS PACIFIC ISLANDER ECO-LITERATURES edited by Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, Leora Kava, and Craig Santos Perez—TBR
- KA LEI HA’AHEO: BEGINNING HAWAIIAN by Alberta Pualani Hopkins—“…a culturally oriented Hawaiian language textbook. Its grammar lessons include the relationship between the language and the Hawaiian worldview.”
- ‘ŌLELO ‘ŌIWI: HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE FUNDAMENTALS by Hōkūlani Cleeland—“Each chapter also includes information on proper pronunciation and cultural usage of the language, enabling the learner to acquire a deeper appreciation of the intricacies and uniqueness of Hawaiian, the living native language of our island home.”—TBR
- HAWAIIAN LEGENDS OF THE GUARDIAN SPIRITS by Caren Loebel-Fried—TBR

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to give this book a higher score. I want to love this book. But I can't. A lot of the pain that pours from the ink in each word is directly caused by my racial background. I am Hawaiian at Heart, which means that while I love the culture and live it (it's kind of required when you're married to a Native Hawaiian), I am neither Hawaiian nor was I born in Hawaii, so I am always an outsider, a tourist. My presence, in a lot of ways, is exactly what Trask responds to in many of these poems. They are filled with anger and sorrow and beauty. The tendency here is to make some simile about nature, but that would make the sentiment in the book sound primitive when it's a very, very modern one.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully beautiful collection in so many ways. It touches upon the physical aspects of the poet's home, and the cultural treasures that she grew up with, but also the great sorrow that comes from the spoiling of those physical wonders and loss of those treasures. It's a subtle yet powerful expression of the frustrations felt by many consumed by colonialism and subsumed into someone else's narrative, one that the poet refuses to employ.

[Summer K · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some people who will write that these poems are only filled with anger. But it's not true. The poems convey the beauty of Hawai'i, the culture and the Kānaka Maoli, but also puts a spotlight on how much suffering our people, land, natural resources, etc have had to endure because of colonization. It's a lyrical love note to the people and also a reminder of how resilient we are.

Highly recommend it.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Poetry Foundation review here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harri...

[Hollis · Rating 4 out of 5]

“at midnight my burning lips / recall a song of fountains / soft flame and veil / for a voice of oiled leaves” (from “Afternoons”)

The volume is made up of generally short pieces, alternativeness political and sexually expressive (sometimes both, but not generally so). My favorite section was the third, mostly made up of effectively untitled vignettes—I say effectively untitled because most are named after the first word or phrase of the poems. I found it to be a welcome development in style from Trask’s first volume, featuring a wider range of themes and less-direct, and thus more expansive, writing. The writer is slightly freer in her blending of English with Hawaiian phrases, a method that greatly compliments the writing’s lucid focus on Hawaiian cosmological relations. “Hi‘iaka Chanting,” one of the earliest pieces, is a great example of this focus, detailing a forest overseen by Hi‘iaka, one of Pele’s sisters.

These poems, for an outsider, require some effort to look up and understand the reference to various gods, goddesses, and Hawaiian landscapes, but I respect that ‘failure’ to render her poems for an exterior audience. Furthermore, its not even that much of an effort, because the volume features an extensive glossary of terms both historical, geographical, and cosmological. Finally, with her last volume, I had said that I preferred to experience Trask’s political critiques through prose rather than poetry, but that doesn’t apply here. Poems like “Nostalgia: VJ-Day,” “Sovereignty,” and “Dispossessions of Empire” exemplify this volume’s more ambitious and persuasively executed approach to political poetics where Trask’s newly fragmented stanzas render the dynamics of colonization as a disjointed discourse of violence and agency.

Favorites: “Hi‘iaka Chanting” / “‘Shipwrecked on the Shallows of the Stars’” / “Where Is the Elegant Light” / “Before Dawn Leaves Forever” / “Into Our Light I Will Go Forever”

[Syntaxx · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked how the poet interspersed native Hawaiian lore and language throughout their work. My favorite excerpt, from II. of the "The Broken Gourd" (p12): Each of us slain/by the white claw/of history: lost/ genealogies, propertied/missionaries, diseased/haole.

[Lindsey Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really appreciated this book of poetry! Not my normal medium of choice but enjoyed reading from the perspective of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.