Welcome to Vox Populi, where Columba College ākonga cast a critical eye over pop culture happenings. This week, we welcome our very own #girlboss Nora Paicu (Year 12) who explores Karlo Mila’s powerful poetry anthology, Goddess Muscle.

The anthology Goddess Muscle - written by Karlo Mila, a New Zealand-born poet of Tongan and Pākehā descent - is a thought-provoking piece of work, covering topics from culture, identity, racism, to sexual abuse and climate change.

Mila provides a provocative collection of poems, touching on equality, discrimination and "un-level playing fields" in We Find Ourselves Statistics, where she writes about racism in the police system and how change is required to bring justice. For All My Sisters is about sexual abuse and the continuous bypassing of this major worldwide problem. Mila says positive change is required to create a safer environment for all people and action must be taken to stop harm from continuing. She uses her writing to get ideas across to all audiences and to speak up on different topics, helping ignite a spark of change.

I found Mila's writing style unique due to her vivid descriptions and visual effects. These ranged from the poem waving across the page like an ocean to peaking into mountains. The poem Oceania especially highlights the deep connections Mila makes throughout the book with nature. She describes the ocean as a living being, and her love for it is touching: "my ache/ for ocean/ so great/ my eyes weep/ waves." The effects of climate change were strewn through the beginning of the anthology, reminding readers that these problems need to be fixed in order to conserve our taonga. Overall, Goddess Muscle incorporates Mila's culture to create a powerful book that faces tough topics.