Artwork by Kate Montgomery, Art graduate student
Ka Hana Mau Loa
from McDougall's ʻĀina Hānau
There is always the work
of mending and clearing
to be done, the long
entwined branches, newly
trimmed off an old tree
hauled to the bordering gulch,
and the smell of smoke
carried by the wind. Above,
the clouds fracture
bend, slowly, to seed
themselves back
down into the soil.
Brandy Nālani McDougall
Alumna of UO’s Creative Writing graduate program and Hawaiʻi's newest 2023-25 state poet laureate is inspiring current graduate students.
McDougall is an associate professor of indigenous studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and director of the Mānoa Center for Humanities and Civic Engagement. Her poetry illuminates and honors the ancestries, languages, and histories of the people of Hawaiʻi—and is shaping the work of UO students today.
I’m a strong believer in the healing power
of stories and poetry... I see poetry as, above all, a form of connection,
of pilina, that was created to help us humans to remember, to dream,
to empathize, and to hope, and all of these ways to connect
are really core to healing ourselves, our ʻāina (land), and the planet.
- Brandy Nālani McDougall
Honoring McDougall's Work
To continue McDougall's legacy of leading change, we've connected current UO Art graduate student, Kate Montgomery, with McDougall's latest collection of poetry, ‘Āina Hānau. The artwork above was created by Montgomery, inspired by the knowledge and love embedded in McDougall's words.
McDougall’s work will be commemorated in Montgomery’s art and hand-printed on a Vandercook Letterpress by current UO graduate students as a gesture of gratitude for those who have come before them.
KATE MONTGOMERY
Artist Statement
Brandy Nālani McDougall’s poetry stayed with me long after I finished her book, ‘Āina Hānau. Her powerful words build a rich and evocative world in which the pain and terrorism of colonialism is deeply and personally felt, as is the urgency of sustained and unrelenting resistance.
For days I was left contemplating the words written in her epic poem Real (G)Estate, in which McDougall mourns the circumstances that led to her storing her daughters’ umbilical cords, or ‘iewe, in her freezer rather than burying them on her own Hawaiian land. This goal seems further and further from reach as colonialism and capitalism tighten their stranglehold on Hawai’i.
In my own practice, I find microscopic imagery to be a powerful tool when attempting to envision something that is not normally visible. Here, I have reconstructed a microscopic image of a cross section of an umbilical cord into the ground beneath Mauna Kea, which is currently being protected by Hawaiian activists from further development and desecration. McDougall laments how sand is imported from faraway places to create false beaches for tourists on Hawai’i. I have also microscopically explored the intricacies of single grains of sand. A grain of sand may seem unremarkable if you don’t know how to look at it. I thought a lot about sand and the power of resistance. A single grain of sand may seem insignificant, but in great numbers it can change a whole landscape."