To read Effigies III, a new collection of Indigenous poetry by Pacific Islander women, is to taste the sweet life giving water of a fountainhead of Oceania writing, with the bitter earth of the fight against colonialism in its many forms in the Pacific Islands. Kisha Borja-Quichocho-Calvo describes American hegemony, in island territories and Native American lands, as a He'e, an octopus, and encourages us to "sharpen our teeth, / and bite the fuck out / of the / He'e." She writes about being Miss Guam Tourism, but her "dågan can barely fit into a bikini." She writes about colonial perceptions, as in "We're too stupid, / too dirty, / too poor. // small, / little, / tiny. // Too / Micronesian." Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio has "forgotten my own grandparents middle names / Forgotten what color thread god used to sew me together with." Her writings speak to the anti-colonial struggle of Native Hawaiian / Kanaka 'Oiwi for sovereignty, when "Sometimes / we are only / the song / the promise / the faint memory of a sweet melody / the mo'olelo for the next generation to carry.

" The poetry of Tagi Qolouvaki sings "like the music of bone flutes." But in her sensuous embodiments of desire is the caveat that "sugar is the blood of girmityas, itaukei and blackbirding slaves from vanuatu and the solomons to fatten the pockets of settlers and the native elite sugar is sacred dovu made toxic through refinement and poisoning the vanua". For No'u Revilla "the pretty is in pieces all over the floor." Beauty is inescable in her writing, "To the girl holding the / faucet in her hands // like a wand, like a good / witch: I left my dress in the // sink for you." And then she tells us, "Sometimes I feel like 13,796 feet. / But sometimes I feel like choking." referring to the Kanaka 'Oiwi struggle to honor the sacredness of Mauna Kea. Revilla tell us, "I am the daughter of fishermen.

/ Born part-bait, sent to sea. // There is no weeping in salt water." Effigies III is a book about language, a hybrid between English and the Moana/Pacific, in the voices of women who are re-claiming the Indigenous Pacific Islands. As Qolouvaki writes "Old words will change their meanings. Perhaps, if I swallow then spit out salt water, / Sweetened by my breath / Quickened by my heartbeat / Swirled over my tongue / Just so . // aue . oiaue . // Perhaps I will recover lost words // aue .

oiaue .".