Christine Joy

“Makaaina voices with fresh songs to sing
Speaking of new strengths
Mind and body strengths,
Strengthening the hope of change -- new joys
in this tiresome regimen of want and confusion.
Grand queen sleep the ageless
sleep in peace

Your people rise now,
and demand their share
of this sweet and wondrous place.
The populace from their sleep of compliance
Awake now to the beat of new
drums hewn from betrayal and delusion
urging the makaaina voice to
rise above the din of daily
trumpetings of man and machine
To be rid of confusion and fear
To stand equally with the new
rulers of this precious place
to be ruthless in demanding what is ours.

--from "Pono”
― John Dominis Holt, Hanai: A Poem for Queen Liliuokalani

“ʻIolani Palace also stands in equally strong rebuttal to the notion that the will of Hawaiʻi's Kings and Queens was simply overborne by outsiders. Hawaiʻi's Monarchs from King Kamehameha I on worked diligently and often brilliantly to find the path to draw together traditional Hawaiian culture and values and the forces of Westernization and modernization spreading across the world. This was not an easy path, for there was no model to follow. Each monarch in his or her way remained true to their land and their people. If you look closely and listen carefully, the Palace itself speaks to that path.

That it was ultimately force of arms that brought the journey of modern Hawaiian Kingdom to an end makes it a tragedy and not a denial of honor, integrity, and achievements of that journey.”
― Carol Maxym, ʻIolani Palace: A Metaphor for Two Centuries of Hawaiʻi History

“We see hundreds and hundreds of Weddell seals.
There are so many seals!”
― Roxanne Beltran, Seal Named Patches

“We remember and in remembering there is
happiness.
Although dark times seeped in the hearts
of all of you who lived those days of
Commissioner Stevens and Captain Wiltse.
--from "Ka wa hauʻle”
― John Dominis Holt, Hanai: A Poem for Queen Liliuokalani