Haunani Kay Trask (1949-2021) was a Hawaiian leader, an intellectual, an organizer, and a poet. She is a featured artist in the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2022 at the Honolulu Museum of Art through May 8, 2022. In that collaboration, Trask provides commentary for Ed Greevyʻs explosive photographs of wrenching land, access, and identity struggles in Hawaiʻi through the 1970ʻs.

With the publication of her book, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, 1993, Trask stoked a conceptual evolution for Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians alike. Known for unstinting candor, we hear an example, Trask was also a published poet. 

In this episode, Hawaiian composer, singer, and educator Kainani Kahaunaele offers an interpretation of Trask's poetry. Kainani embraces Haunani Kay's fierceness and follows it deeper. It is rooted in love. Love for this place, recognized through sensuality.

We close with Kainaniʻs composition, Waipunalei, an example of the richness that a sensual interpretation of history and landscape can convey.  

Eros c'est la vie.