Welcome to Vox Populi, where Columba College ākonga cast a critical eye over pop culture happenings. This week, Monet Morrison (Year 11) vividly dissects Tusiata Avia’s urgent, incendiary, and oh-so-vital poetry anthology ‘The Savage Coloniser Book.’

“A white poet can only talk about how he feels

I can only talk about how I feel

I can only weep like the white woman

And write you this poem that will not end”

This quote from Tusiata Avia’s “The Savage Coloniser Book” - an empowering poetry collection that breaks the colonial view lens open - depicts the challenging reality of people of colour living in Aotearoa. Avia is of Samoan descent and has herself experienced acute racism and sexism; through her writing, she is able to channel her anger into educating the wider community. Her poems highlight topics such as alienation, the policing of women's bodies, the harsh consequences of colonisation, and most importantly what it is like to be a brown person navigating their way through a prejudiced and hateful society.

Avia’s work is confrontational, which forces the audience to understand the pain and loss of many. There are those that can seek refuge in her inspiring words, as she encourages the wider community to realise how serious the ramifications of racial prejudice and segregation are. As she herself says, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”

I wholeheartedly recommend this book - I was able to read it in a night because her emotive language hooked me in. It made me reflect on how fractured our society is and what I could do to mend the cracks. 'The Savage Coloniser Book'holds our whitewashed history to account for the loss of culture by using poetic shards to convey our broken and savage world. This anthology is a political reckoning that inspires people to rise in power.