I wrote the earliest poems in this book when I was nineteen years old, an ocean and continent from where I was born and raised, freezing my ass off and completely distraught nearly all the time. I wrote this book for over a decade. In those years, I watched my family displaced in slow-motion from the only place I’d called home. For as long as I can remember, people from Hawai’i have called Las Vegas “The Ninth Island,” at first the product of relentless advertising from airlines and casinos, now a strange truth as so many have left the islands for myriad reason and made lives in the desert.
I love poetry—maybe that’s obvious. It has given me a way to be in the world. It has given me a home. So many of my closest friends I’ve met through this weird thing we do with words. I have worked, am working, to make sure this book does right by Hawai’i, its people, everyone I love, even that kid who covered his Vans in Shoe Goo to wear them through the snow, who spent his days thinking about line breaks instead of graduating on time (sorry Mom).
It is a dream to have a book with
@upittpress , joining heroes of mine like Ross Gay and Sharon Olds, my teachers Quan Barry and
@illuminatemics . I’m going to be completely honest with you: this book is kind of odd. These are poems of grief filled with jokes, visited by my ancestors and also Kevin Durant. It’s an island in the desert. I hope you’ll join me in freaking the hell out. THE NINTH ISLAND IS COMING IN SPRING 2027!!!
