Haunani Kay Trask

Haunani-Kay Trask is an Indigenous Hawaiian poet, scholar, and activist recognized in the United States and abroad for her leadership in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and her use of the written word as one of the tools to support that movement. Commenting on Trask’s poems in the preface for Night is a Sharkskin Drum, New Zealand scholar Witi Ihimaera says, “She does not simply write with a pen; she slashes with it.”

Trask received a doctorate in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was the founder and former director of the University of Hawai‘i’s Center for Hawaiian Studies, and is currently a full professor at the center. Despite her academic responsibilities, not to mention her political activism, Trask has managed to publish four books: From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai‘i and Eros and Power: The Promise of Feminist Theory, and the poetry collections Light in the Crevice Never Seen and Night is a Sharkskin Drum. She has also worked as co-producer and scriptwriter for the award-winning film Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation.

We celebrate Haunani's work!