Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Juliana Spahr uses details to explore Hawai'i's politics of location and her own place in it as an outsider: a hard-core show where the singer shouts out "fuck you-aloha-I love you" over and over; the pidgin word 'da kine;' native Hawaiian rights to gathering; Palolo stream; the similarities and differences between hotel rooms and conference rooms; and acrobats at a Las Vegas-style floor show in Waikiki. Spahr is attentive to specifics and she draws from documentary poetics in these five interconnected poems that move between lyricism, rhythmic repetition, and explanatory prose. Conceptually provocative and yet moving at the same time, Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You demands reading and re-reading.