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language: English
country: Tonga
year: 1981
form: poetry
dates read: 1.8.23
breezed through the Tongan poet Konai Helu Thaman’s 1981 collection Langakali. it’s not the best collection I’ve ever read, but I found its focus on everyday life — as in several of the poems I posted — really affecting, and there are some great phrases (“who would complain to the mirrored sky”).
some of the earlier poems — perhaps especially the title poem — are also striking both as poems and as bitter documents of Tonga’s transition to wage labor as the dominant form of economic activity and the full-on arrival of capitalism in the country.
I don’t have a ton else to say right now — I enjoyed reading it and will probably read some of her other collections in the future.
moods: lighthearted