SEVEN AND EIGHT
STORIES OF FIJI
IN SLOANE
i rode the wrong way
to catch the circle
walked past history
going to educate myself
on empire
no one notices
fijians smiling for photographs
te ariki campbell’s boys cry
vulnerability in the best practices
of the british army
empire
ended
empire
changed
ARCHIVE STORIES
(LOST AND FOUND II)
One soldier wrote a letter a week
to her Na and Ta
from Basic Training Camp at Lingfield,
Photos from all over
Including trips to Catterick and Ireland
Postcards from London
Every third week of the month a letter would arrive from Fiji with news of what everyone was doing— Na and Ta, sisters and brothers, the family in the village
That would make her cry
One soldier would have sent 52 letters a year for the three years she was in the Women’s Royal Army Corps
That’s at least 156 letters
Her Ta would have sent his daughter 12 letters a year for the three years she was in the British Army That’s at least 36 letters
192 letters that contained detailed descriptions of what life was like for a young woman from Fiji in the British Army.
Multiply 192 by twelve since there were eleven other women in England with that soldier over that three year period all with families back home that could read and write
2304 letters
that were written
read
treasured
wept over
2304 letters
WELL-TRAINED
A well-trained soldier
Takes cover
At the sound of gunfire
A well-trained mother
And tells the boys off
ON EXERCISE
This is when you feel most
Like a soldier
When you are not allowed
Deodorant
Soap
This is when you feel least
Like a woman
Because the scent of you
Blends with the scent
Of the jungle
This is when you feel closest
to the earth
Closest to the vanua
And then you shit
Right in it
PEACEKEEPING
This is the house
That peacekeeping built
This is the extension to the house
That peacekeeping paid for
This is the farm
This is the four-wheel drive
These are the music lessons for my daughter
These are the French lessons for my son
That was the heart surgery in India for my mother
These are the dentures for my dad
This is the flat screen tv
This is the Playstation
This is the leather lounge suite
This is an authentic Persian rug
This is the giant stuffed Panda
This is the velvet Last Supper wallhanging
These are the Guess Jeans
These are the D&G eyeglasses
This is top of the range Nike footwear
These are the photographs from our Gold Coast holiday
These are the salty peanut flavoured snacks
This is the ground Kurdish coffee
This is the leather bomber jacket
This is the custom-made vakabati
This is the ngatu launima
These are all the pirated DVDs
This is the iPod
This is the iPad
This is the life
This is the life
IN KINGS
CROSS WHILE
i can see fiji
being pressed
at amstore
m.o.d. is not calling
sandhurst not calling
sean and the kids, not
today
obama’s trail
leads to london
pukerua’s poems
fly over handlebars
paekakariki’s taste
good on the tongue
TABU SORO
(NEVER SURRENDER)
every time the doctors find
a new tumour
the kangaroos come
to the window
her husband has a whip
for dealing with snakes
my son wants to see
a wombat but only
finds his tracks and
the entrance to his burrow
she goes lookin'
for another cigarette
CUMMING STREET STUDIO PORTRAIT 2000
Mother and son
smile hesitantly
in front of
the usual backdrop
But mother’s arm
is bandaged--
wounded from
the mutinous shrapnel
of an altogether different
backdrop
YALEWA SOTIA
Tutu Te
Corrected me gently:
“They are Yalewa Sotia,
Not Marama Sotia.
and a sotia. It’s not possible
in Fijian culture.
A marama is everything
a sotia is not.”
So yalewa is to female,
as marama is to feminine.
You can be a female soldier.
But you cannot be a feminine soldier.
At least, not in the Fijian language.
I ponder this lesson in
culturally-specific
sex-gender
ideology.
Vinaka, Tutu Te.
ARCHIVE STORIES
(LOST AND FOUND I)
Piece reference: W0 32/19455
Scope and content: Visit of recruiting team to Fiji Islands: arrangements for air-lifting
of recruits
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference: 19/Recruiting/362
TABU SORO
(NEVER SURRENDER) II
this is a place half-way
between the coast and canberra
but it leans more towards the capital
as if it's consumed by
they say you don't help
someone on morphine
by giving them water:
dessication reduces the pain,
they say.
water intensifies it.
the snakes and wombat
know this.
but they have their own problems,
her husband's whip and my son's curiosity
among them.
only the kangaroos
come to the window
drawn to teaching her
how they live without
water.
WEDDING DRESS
I do realize
I have a choice
I am an officer
I will be your wife
My friends all married in lace
Grateful that your masculinity
Is not threatened
By my militarism
I do realize
I have a choice
I am an officer
I will be your wife
TURAGA NI VALU
A woman soldier
Is a “Yalewa Sotia”
But a female officer
A woman soldier
Will always be
Marked by her sex.
But an officer is
Always a gentleman
Even if she is
A woman.