Decolonizing English

The role UPNG’s early writers played in repurposing the English language to establish a Papua New Guinea English in the years leading up to Independence

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The impact of any country’s political climate on its writers is profound, considerably more so in times of political unrest, social change, and foundational shifts in power and governance. In the 1960s and 70s in Papua New Guinea, this impact was doubled, as the push for Independence coincided with the country’s first taste of its own literary tradition. The University of Papua New Guinea was established just a decade before Independence in 1975, and the first students to attend the university are some of the country’s most well-known and renowned writers.[1] This essay will discuss the role UPNG played in the emergence of a Papua New Guinean literary tradition.  Due to the timing of its emergence, the political climate, and specifically anti-colonial nationalist sentiments, had a monumental impact on this tradition’s foundation.

As Gorle contends, “In Papua New Guinea, a country of great cultural and linguistic diversity, questions of language are inevitably political.”[2] The writing that came out of these hyper-political years can be recognized as a kind of decolonized English, and demonstrates not only how the colonizer language was repurposed and redesigned by local writers, but why these writers’ decisions to write in English were not an act of submission to the colonial rule but rather an act of defiance against it. Through a close reading of three poems written by UPNG students John Kasaipwalova, Kumalau Tawali, and Apisai Enos, this essay will reveal how each of these writers, in their varying ways, demonstrate the initial years of a decolonized English. Despite all three poets’ varying stances on what role writers should play within their country’s greater political environment, each understood the gravity of their position as some of Papua New Guinea’s first published writers, as well as the power to be found within repurposing their colonizer’s language in their writing. The writing of these poets represents a decolonized English as their poetry addresses national political consciousness, anti-colonial sentiments, and the perspectives of local identities. In “Reluctant Flame,” Kasaipwalova uses English to speak back to the colonizer and stir a national political consciousness; Tawali’s “The Bush Kanaka Speaks” uses English to expose the hypocritical position and perceptions of the white foreigner; and Enos’ “Unity” embodies a national identity through image and metaphor, thereby capturing his desire to create a Papua New Guinea English.

There is a wide range of material on the three-way link between the emergence of Papua New Guinea literature, the start of UPNG, and the political climate throughout the 1960s and 70s. The politics and literature of the time can be understood as having a kind of mutualistic relationship whereby, as Hamasaki notes, the politics “affected the themes and development of this creative literature” just as the literature affected the political climate.[3] As May argued in a 1971 article for The Australian Quarterly, “the extent of the burgeoning of Papua and New Guinea writing in the last couple of years [...] is in part traceable to the recent setting-up of the University (first graduates, 1970), which has provided a training ground and an environment conducive to the development of an indigenous literature.”[4] Alongside the establishment of UPNG, which opened its doors officially in 1965, Papua New Guinea was preparing for self-governance in 1973 and Independence in 1975, and “an important part of this preparation was encouraging the people of the colony to read and write.”[5] As Ellerman highlights, prior to the instrumental work of UPNG in creating a national literature, “no pre-colonial literary tradition existed in any language in either colony.”[6] Therefore, the university worked overtime in that first crucial decade to create “secondary and tertiary institutions, a national Literature Bureau, writing programs, national literature competitions, libraries, archives, adult literacy programs, literary journals, writers’ unions, bookstores, publishing houses, and the like.”[7]

Kasaipwalova, Tawali, and Enos were all students at UPNG in its foundational years. Despite its formation by the colonial administration, Frank Johnson, the first chair of the Literature Department, was adamant about creating a curriculum that did not simply cycle through traditional Western literature. The courses Johnson created were centered around oral literature, modern literature, and linguistics, as he “thought that a traditional literature curriculum was bound to produce what V.S. Naipaul had called ‘mimic men’: unsuccessful imitators of all things European.”[8] The non-Eurocentric tone set by Johnson soon attracted both Prithvindra Chakravarti, who resonated with Johnson’s avoidance of “the standard English curriculum of British and American literature,” and Ulli Beier, who was hired soon after for his “teaching experience in former African colonies.”[9] These first few teachers set the tone for the ongoing development of a decolonized literature department that promoted oral literature traditions and cycled the work of its students back into its curriculum.[10] Because of these teachers and the anti-colonial stances they incorporated into their teaching styles, member of staff Mike Greicus argued that by 1972, the department was “encouraging the formation of a new literature.”[11]

Beier was a key figure for students in these pre-Independence years, as his experience teaching in Nigeria set the tone for his politically-inclined teaching style at UPNG.[12] Rabbie Namaliu, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea from 1988 to 1992, spoke highly of Beier and his role in creating a decolonized English for local writers, asserting, “he shattered the old Shibboleth that Niuginians can only be evoked as subjects, but that they can’t write . . . he saw our potential, he encouraged our talents, and over a period of four years, Niugini had its own literature written by its own artists.”[13] As Ellerman argues, “Beier wanted to show students how they could re-shape English to suit their own circumstances”; he “wanted to force them to work from their own art outward, something he considered to be a reversal of the process of colonization.”[14] Beier also created the Papua Pocket Poets, the 45-volume series in which the poems discussed in this essay were published.[15]

First published in 1971 in Pan African Pocket Poets 1, and again in 1972 in Papua Pocket Poets 29, Kasaipwalova’s long poem “Reluctant Flame” is a powerful encapsulation of his political stance in the years leading up to Independence. Printed two years after his speech titled “Why We Should Hate Whites,” Kasaipwalova’s poem embodies many of the sentiments made in this presentation, namely that the white population within Papua New Guinea and their imposed systems of power should be rejected “so the native people could stand up with pride as members of their own race.”[16]

Kasaipwalova was vehement in his belief that Papua New Guinean writing must match its current political climate and speak up on political matters. In his article titled “What is Cultural Reconstruction,” he asks the reader,

Does this, then, suggest that cultural manifestations in the forms of the finer arts ought to embody an element of political agitation? Yes! The arts ought to be a mirror for self-examination, where the inconsistencies and situations of human oppression could be expressed. For this to be effective, they must communicate the message to the people with a view to enlightening and transforming our society.[17]

For Kasaipwalova, writing is a political act, and the writer has a responsibility to speak for the people’s political desires. His poem “Reluctant Flame” is perhaps his most well-known piece of political creative writing. Written primarily in English, Kasaipwalova repurposes the colonizer’s language in multifold ways, ultimately achieving a decolonized form of Papua New Guinea English through his portrayal of colonized consciousness, the loaded images he conjures and the political dichotomies they represent, and his reversal of colonial perceptions of Papua New Guinea.

The arguments brought to light through the images and symbols in “Reluctant Flame” speak to Kasaipwalova’s repurposing of the English language to express his radical nationalist stance. The poem is layered with the argument that a nationalist pulse exists within each Papua New Guinean, as well as a call to nurture and grow this pulse by uniting into a broader national consciousness. The symbol of the flame itself encapsulates this argument, which grows in strength as it spreads. He starts by asking, “Where is that flame!!! Where has it gone!!!,” before going on to write, “[tiny] flame of my pulse, you are silent, you are patient / My hands and my aching body will nurse you against the venomous enemy.”[18] The narrator progresses from searching for the lost flame to describing its growing strength, writing, “the tiny flame will grow its arms and legs very slowly / Until one day its volcanic pulse will tear the green mountain apart / To allow the pentup blood flow and congested vomit spit freely.” As the poem goes on and the flame gains momentum, the language around the symbol becomes more shared, speaking to Kasaipwalova’s argument for a united national consciousness. He starts using the pronoun “our” and expressing a shared possession of the flame. He writes of “our brotherly flame,” and says, “[my] flame take your fuel from these brother flames [...] You will grow, you will grow, you will grow like a boil on pale skins.”

Kasaipwalova uses the colonizer’s language to powerfully encapsulate his stance that Papua New Guineans “have been conditioned to accept colonial suppression,” using the image of “the cold seed” to demonstrate this internalized conditioning.[19] He writes, “I do not see the cold seed making roots in my heart / The seed grows, it spreads inside me and I cannot see it.” He depicts the internal battle between seed and flame, writing, “[deep] in my core that small blood droplet pulses lonely and faint / Each day the weighty cover shrieks arrogantly / Vowing to crush and smother the tiny flame.” This imagery speaks to the poem’s theme of what Hamasaki argues to be “black obsequiousness and submission that oppress the narrator of the poem and his world.”[20] Throughout the poem this internal battle between seed and flame, between internalized colonial repression and national consciousness, consists until finally, in the last stanza, the narrator calls out,

RELUCTANT FLAME OPEN YOUR VOLCANO

TAKE YOUR PULSE AND YOUR FUEL

BURN BURN BURN BURN BURN

LET YOUR FLAMES VIBRATE THEIR DRUMS

BURN BURN BURN BURN BURN

BURN AWAY MY WEIGHTY ICE

BURN INTO MY HEART A DANCING FLAME.

Hamasaki calls this stanza “both a plea and a command,” a final cry at the end of a long dance between internalized conflicting fights, between submission to colonial oppression and empowerment to stand against it.[21] English serves as the vessel through which Kasaipwalova carries out his believed political responsibility as a writer, and these opposing symbols of seed and flame serve as the symbols of his nationalist appeal.

Kasaipwalova further repurposes the English language in this poem in his depictions of colonialism, projecting his subversion of colonial rule through the narrator’s voice. He assigns colonialism to the two intertwined symbols of the fog and the chill, directly opposing the nationalist flame; he states, “[the] chill is killing the flame.” As Hamasaki argues, “[for] Kasaipwalova, the chill is white oppression in all its manifestations.”[22] Of the fog Kasaipwalova writes, “[black] destination with villages of joyful living seems impossible / Made unreal and distant by the thick white fog.” His personification of the fog certainly speaks to his view of the destructive nature of colonial oppression: he writes of “the white fog and all that it devours,” of “its greedy arrogance,” and how “the thick fog closes our vision.” In addition to these loaded symbols, colonialists are called out more directly throughout the poem through the simple pronoun “they”; he writes of “their guns, their planes” and that “they have no legs, they slithe greasily like snakes.” The language used in his imagery of the colonialists is hateful and resentful; as Hamasaki writes, “it’s tone is angry, sarcastic, caustic, descriptive and intolerant.”[23] Kasaipwalova expresses intense disgust towards them and their position, writing, “[look] how orderedly fat and silent they float this earth.” As the poem progresses, his depictions of colonialists grow stronger until finally, the tension reaches its peak, all imagery stripped away as the narrator yells out, “FUCK OFF, WHITE BASTARD,” a powerful line not only for its apparent intensity but for its direct address, in English, to the colonizer. Kasaipwalova’s forceful language here matches his assertive political stance; in “What is Cultural Reconstruction” he writes,

But before we can stand with dignity and equality with other human beings of different ethnic origins, we must strike at those that divide and prevent us from so doing. Our present condition is one pregnant with racism. It is white defined by white, re-inforced by white interests, and maintained primarily for the supremacy of whites. Not to admit this fact is to hide the reality of the process that is imposed in Niugini. On the national level, the fact of imperialism in its various facets cannot be shrugged off.[24]

His writing embodies this argument; his language strikes back, taking a stand against imperialism and the piercing racism that comes with it.

In addition to his opposing imagery of the flame and the fog, of the pulse and the cold seed, as representations of nationalism and colonial oppression, Kasaipwalova repurposes the English language by breaking down the external perception of Papua New Guinea: he takes the colonial image of his country and flips it on its head. As Irele argued in 1974, the colonial view of Papua New Guinea is “a quaint exotic world left behind by time and ‘progress.’ At its most charitable, it is an image of a land of ‘primitive’ peoples, free of the sexual constraints that produced Freudian psychoanalysis; at its most vicious, and more ready to hand, an image of an ‘area of darkness’ inhabited by savages whose unfitness for a responsible place in the modern world needs no demonstration.”[25] Kasaipwalova takes this view and reverses the narrative, associating dark, cool imagery and language with the colonizer and opposing their perception of Papua New Guinea by arguing that the colonizer is to blame for this ‘darkness.’ He writes,

The fog blankets over, it pierces-- no black density withstands the flood

I tremble in fear, the cold westerly chills my flesh and bones

Memory of past warmth swims in my heart like stones

What is this chill, where is that flame to warm and melt me ?

In this sense, not only does the flame and chill binary represent the opposing forces of nationalism and colonialism, it encapsulates the real versus colonially perceived views of Papua New Guinea. Following this argument, when Kasaipwalova writes “memory of past warmth,” he may be speaking of the warmth of a past Papua New Guinea, one unpolluted by colonial perceptions. The chill and the white fog serve as powerful images for the projections foreigners cast over Papua New Guinea, which stripped away the country’s warmth, its reality. Through these dichotomies, these powerful political images that promote Kasaipwalova’s black power nationalist stance, and through his direct address to the white colonizer, Kasaipwalova successfully repurposes the English language; he subverts the projected white power inherently associated with English by using the language to demonstrate to an international audience his empowered stance for a unified Papua New Guinea against colonial oppression.

Kumalau Tawali’s poem, “The Bush Kanaka Speaks,” first published in 1970 in Papua Pocket Poets 19, is known as one of his most political works, though in general he maintained a much more moderate political approach than Kasaipwalova. In fact, the two often fought about their opposing political stances in the early 1970s.[26] In a 1970 interview, Tawali stated, “there is really no need for us to have such things as ‘black power’ [...] there is no need for racial discrimination and racial identification. [... Some] of our students only create racial disharmony by having such things as this.”[27] The interview quickly prompted a rebuttal from Kasaipwalova, who, as quoted above, believed in the necessity of fighting back before uniting with those “of different ethnic origins.”[28] Thus, as opposed to his former classmate, whose focus on growing a black power nationalist movement can be located within “Reluctant Flame,” Tawali’s poem embodies his “humanistic concern for his culture, values, and beliefs.”[29] Despite his more humanistic focus, however, this poem stirred a strong political reaction and a growing national consciousness just as Kasaipwalova’s did; as Hamasaki notes, it “helped stimulate a growing commentary dealing with resentment and reactions to foreign domination and colonialism by Papua New Guinea poets.”[30] In this poem, Tawali decolonizes English in both the images he creates and in his imaginative approach to language; not only does his sharp imagery “[expose] the stereotypical image of white imperialists,” but his interweaving of Tok Pisin words into English sentences, his combination of “vernacular and Pidgin and even broken English” can be seen as an inherently political statement of making the English language his own, of shifting the language of the colonizer into the voice of Papua New Guinea.[31]

When asked about the meaning behind this poem, Tawali explained, “I wanted to express what the ordinary man in the village thinks about - in this case, referring to the Kiap, and not only to the Kiap but to some white men in general.”[32] The narrator in the poem takes on the voice of “the ordinary man” by writing from his perspective: “the kiap shouts at us.”[33] However, its effect is inherently political. The poem’s most blatant political aspect is Tawali’s portrayal of the colonizer, whom he calls the kiap, which translates to “government officer.”[34] The voice of the kiap is thus, literally, a political voice. Combined with the poem’s title, “The Bush Kanaka Speaks,” the image comes to life of the verbal battle between the voice of the government officer and the voice of the narrator.

Tawali’s representation of the white colonizer is full of disdain and speaks to what May calls “the usually restrained” Tawali’s occasional “violence of expression.”[35] In four of the poem’s eight stanzas, the narrator paints a picture of the kiap. The first three times he writes, “[the] kiap shouts at us / forcing the veins to stand out in his neck / nearly forcing the excreta out of his bottom.” However,  the fourth time he changes his language to call out white men explicitly, writing, “every white man the garment sends to us / forces his veins out shouting.” His strong verb choice, “forcing,” implies a lack of consent, a coercion, an infiltrating of the colonizer into Papua New Guinea. The narrator displays an incredibly bitter tone towards “the kiap,” the “he” or “him” throughout the poem, writing, “[yet] he sits on a soft chair and does nothing / just shouts, eats, drinks, eats, drinks,” and “these white men have no bones,” embodying the contempt towards the white colonizer over which Kasaipwalova wished to see the country unit.

In such a short poem, Tawali captures the colonial perception of Papua New Guineans and the country’s reaction to foreign views of themselves and their lifestyle. In the other four stanzas, a verbal back-and-forth takes place between these two opposing perspectives; in the first line of each of these stanzas, Tawali raises a specific perception the kiap maintains of Papua New Guineans, then uses the remainder of the stanza to express the narrator’s reaction to this outsider perception. In this back-and-forth of external versus internal perceptions and understandings of self, Tawali calls into question two classic views of the colonizer: that they consider their knowledge to be the ‘right’ and most powerful knowledge, and that they consider their way of life to be the only ‘right’ way. The second stanza begins, “[he] says: you are ignorant, / but can he shape a canoe, / tie a mast, fix an outrigger?” He then questions, “Can he steer a canoe through the night / without losing his way? / Does he know when a turtle comes ashore to lay its eggs?” Through this questioning, Tawali destabilizes the position of Western and foreign knowledge, revealing how little the foreigner’s knowledge means within Papua New Guinea’s borders.

Later on, in the fourth stanza, the narrator destabilizes the colonizer’s perceived notion about lifestyle. The narrator begins, “[he] says we live in dirty rubbish houses. / Has he ever lived in one?” calling the colonizer out for his lack of understanding, for questioning his way of life without actually having experienced it. The rest of the stanza is a powerful counter to the Western condescension of non-Western living:

Has he enjoyed the sea breeze

blowing through the windows?

and the cool shade under the pandanus patch?

Let him keep his iron roof, shining in the sun,

cooking his insides, bleaching his skin white.

The sixth stanza continues this notion; the narrator expresses a more profound disdain for the Western perception of his lifestyle and a pride in the fact that the Westerner is not strong enough to live as he does. He continues, “[he] says: you’ll get sick / eating that fly ridden rood. Haven’t I eaten such food all my life / and I haven’t died yet? [...] I’m sure he couldn’t eat our food without getting sick.”

In these stanzas, this back-and-forth carries the feel of a debate, of a fight to decolonize external perceptions of Papua New Guinea. By placing both the colonial perspective and the narrator’s reaction to his perceived ‘primitiveness’ in the same stanza, sometimes the same sentence, the reader can feel the urgency of voice, the need the narrator feels to defend and restore the correct perception of Papua New Guineans, the need to fight the power of the kiap. Tawali uses these two opposing perspectives to create a distinct line between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ between Papua New Guinean and colonizer. Though, as Hamasaki notes, “Tawali has been called ‘...the most lyrical, least explicitly political of the university poets’, his poetry, reflects both a genuine understanding of his private world and of the world of politics as well as his concern over the destiny of his land and country.”[36] His work, and the themes of this poem especially, highlight what Enos, the third poet to be discussed, wrote about cultural perceptions in his 1972 Kovave text, “Niugini Literature: A View from the Editor”; he writes, “being primitive does not necessarily imply inferiority or lack of civilization: I often think it is sometimes the other way around. It again all depends on what we mean by being educated, civilized and superior.”[37] “The Bush Kanaka Speaks” is a profound embodiment of this argument. That the poem is written mainly in English is an inherently political stance that calls out the Western perspective for its presumed authority and existence over other non-Western cultures. Tawali uses the English language to reveal and correct the misconstrued mindset of the white colonizer, thereby repurposing the language to serve as a written form of Papua New Guinean empowerment.

As opposed to the former two poets, who were perhaps more outspoken on their political perspectives, Enos was more concerned with creating a Papua New Guinea English. More specifically, a decolonized Papua New Guinea English that properly encapsulated the country’s national identity. In “Niugini Literature,” he contends,

there is a need for creating an acceptable Niuginian English, just as there is an American English and an Australian English, for instance. One way of doing this- and I know this is going to be a difficult task- is by incorporating local metaphors, expressions and images, to give the language its place and identity. Despite tribal or regional differences, a national type of English has to be created which will be understood and which is flexible for national communication. [...] I envisage Niuginian contemporary literature to be in English, Pidgin, Motu and local languages, for this will certainly remove the elitist stamp and make the literature more popular and available to more people.[38]

While this focus is arguably no less political, his writing came from the desire not to stir a national consciousness but to create and demonstrate a decolonized English in the written form-- something that both Kasaipwalova and Tawali still achieved despite their varying purposes behind their writing. Enos’ poem “Unity” in his 1972 collection High Water demonstrates quite beautifully his arguments made above; specifically, he displays Papua New Guinea English in his writing by “[giving] the language its place and identity.”[39]

A call for “mother” to unite and keep safe the regional groups of Papua New Guinea, “Unity” clearly embodies Ryan’s argument that “[rather] than being limited to colonial critique, the poetry of Enos [...] preserves, innervates, and imparts biocultural knowledge to audiences.”[40] In the opening two stanzas, his poem does just that by naming fifteen regional groups around Papua New Guinea, including “Gamas Markhams Wabags Arowes Kaviengs and Chimbus.” The act of naming is, on the one hand, an act of preserving, especially when considering the rest of the poem is in English and thereby has an English-speaking audience. On the other hand, naming establishes that sense of identity for which Enos strove; by interweaving the names of local communities into his English writing, a Papua New Guinea identity is established and located, a New Guinea English created.

Enos held the belief that “[it] is also a task for Niuginian writers to create national unity through literature”; he goes on, “I do not think we can really unite people to create uniformity. What we need is a sense of responsibility and tolerance between the society and the individual.”[41] The poem’s word choice demonstrates this call for tolerance; in the final stanza, he writes of the regional groups he mentions at the start, “let them recognize each other at last.” He does not call for them to consolidate, to become one, but rather to recognize each other; his language speaks to unity through acceptance, not unity through uniformity. His desire to unite is also seen through his argument surrounding transitional literature, which he contends is “usually a political weapon, a natural response to colonialism.”[42] He writes that this kind of literature “[rebels] against alienation,” and this is precisely what “Unity” does.[43] The poem is a call to action, an appeal for the “mother” of these communities to “pull them back by their navel cords / into the warmth of [her] bilum.” “Unity” is, at its core, a poem about separation; he writes that all of these communities have “scattered and dispersed” and that they “know not their father and mother.” Ryan contends that “Enos’ idea of estrangement signifies the separation between people and the more-than human world resulting from the commodification of land under colonial paradigms,” and his use of harsher language and bloody images demonstrates the political, colonial aspect to this work.[44] He writes, “over your bleeding body they scrambled,” and “like delta islands they drift further apart / in pools and streams of blood,” implying a sense of forceful separation, a profound and violent disordering instigated by the colonial hand.

In his fight against alienation, Enos exhibits the other piece to his argument on creating a Papua New Guinea English. His writing “[incorporates] local metaphors, expressions and images,” most obviously seen through his line, “keep them safe under your tapa cloth.”[45] Tapa cloth is one of the most frequently used materials around Polynesia, created from fig, breadfruit, and other kinds of trees in Papua New Guinea.[46] Enos’ incorporation of tapa into this image, his association of tapa cloth with safety and unity, is a clear example of his Papua New Guinea English writing as tapa is a cultural embodiment of Papua New Guinean culture. His lines, “and as your clouded eyes regain vision / and your trembling hands steady,” are arguably local expressions as well, as they hold many similarities to the language surrounding vision in “Reluctant Flame.” Irele has spoken on this connection between the two poets, writing that “the tone” of Enos’ work “complements, in its more romantic exploration of the Pacific scene and consciousness, that of Kasaipwalova.”[47]

In addition to the naming of regional communities and use of metaphors and images, “Unity” can be studied as an example of Papua New Guinea English for its close association with “oral literature,” which Enos argues is “interwoven into the culture so that one cannot avoid the idea of talking about culture when speaking about literature.”[48] This poem represents his stance: reading through it, one can feel its rhythm and the sharpness of its language. Like many poems within High Water, it is oral and performative in nature and reads as if it was meant to be spoken. Enos’ combined use of repetition and alliteration gives the poem its oral feel; he writes, “[though] your blood is their blood / your flesh their flesh / your mind their mind,” maintaining a song-like quality. This oral quality to the poem, in addition to its regional metaphors and images that work to promote a national identity, speak to Enos’ success in creating and fostering a Papua New Guinea English, one unburdened by the weight of colonialism.   

Kasaipwalova, Tawali, and Enos, despite their varying political stances and literary focuses, each exhibited the start of a decolonized literary tradition in Papua New Guinea through their writing. It is important to note that this analysis is by no means a conclusive report on Papua New Guinean writing. Rather, it highlights the broader theme of decolonized writing in this period by spotlighting three writers who each decolonized the language in their own way. To suggest that the country has one uniform writing style would be a grossly misguided generalization; as Enos has expressed, “[such] cultural, linguistic, and geographical spectra make it hard for me to reduce Niugini to a uniform scale.”[49] The incredible diversity of Papua New Guinea is perhaps its greatest strength; what defines its literary tradition is not a strict set of linguistic rules, or a call for uniformity, but rather its adaptability to any single Papua New Guinean writer, and their ability to interweave their own piece of their country’s culture and language into the work they produce. That is Papua New Guinea English, and that is what each of these poets has shown through their writing.

Footnotes:
[1] Evelyn Ellerman, “Learning to Be a Writer in Papua New Guinea,” History of Intellectual Culture 8, no. 1 (2008), p.3.

[2] Gilian Gorle, “Writing in English: Freedom or Frustration? Some Views from Papua New Guinea,”  Kunapipi, 15, no. 2 (1993), p.128.

[3] Richard Hamasaki, “Dancing Yet to the Dim Dim's Beat: Contemporary Poetry in Papua New Guinea,” Wansalawara: Soundings in Melanesian History (1987), p.159.

[4] Ronald J May, “Nationalism and Papua and New Guinea Writing,” The Australian Quarterly 43, no. 2 (1971), p.57.

[5] Ellerman, “Learning to Be a Writer,” p.3.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., p.4.

[9] Ibid., pp.4-5.

[10] Ibid., p.7.

[11] Ibid., p.4.

[12] Ibid., p.6.

[13] Kirsty Powell, “Papua New Guinea Playwrights,” p.42, as quoted in Ellerman, “Learning to Be a Writer,” p.11.

[14] Ibid., pp.12,7-8.

[15] Athabasca University, “Published Series,” updated October 13, 2016. 

[16] "Saying What You Think on NG," Pacific Islands Monthly 41, no. 7 (July 1970), p.45, as quoted in Richard Hamasaki, “Dancing Yet to the Dim Dim's Beat: Contemporary Poetry in Papua New Guinea,” Wansalawara: Soundings in Melanesian History (1987), p.167.

[17] John Kasaipwalova, “What is Cultural Reconstruction,” New Guinea Writing 3 (March 1971), p.15.

[18] All quotations from “Reluctant Flame” are taken from John Kasaipwalova, “Reluctant Flame,” Pan African Pocket Poets 1 (1971).

[19] Kasaipwalova, “What is,” p.14.

[20] Hamasaki, “Dancing Yet,” p.169.

[21] Ibid., p.171.

[22] Hamasaki, “Dancing Yet,” p.170.

[23] Hamasaki, “Dancing Yet,” p.169.

[24] Kasaipwalova, “What is,” p.15.

[25] Abiola Irele, “Review of Papuan Parallels, by Albert Maori Kiki, John Kasaipwalova, Apisai Enos, Vincent Eri, and Ulli Beier,” Transition, no. 44 (1974), p.50.

[26] Hamasaki, “Dancing Yet,” p.167.

[27] Donald Maynard, “An Interview with Kumalau Tawali,” New Guinea Writing 2 (December 1970), p.13.

[28] Kasaipwalova, “What Is,” p.15.

[29] Steven Edmund Winduo, “Papua New Guinean Writing Today: The Growth of a Literary Culture,” Manoa 2, no. 1 (1990), p.38.

[30] Hamasaki, “Dancing Yet,” p.165.

[31] Winduo, “Papua New Guinean Writing Today,” p.38; Hamasaki, “Dancing Yet,” p.165.

[32] Maynard, “An Interview,” p.13.

[33] All quotations from “The Bush Kanaka Speaks” are taken from Kumalau Tawali, “The Bush Kanaka Speaks,” Signs in the Sky: Poems, Papua Pocket Poets 19 (1970).

[34] “Kiap,” Tok-Pisin.com.

[35] May, “Nationalism and Papua,” p.58.

[36] Don Woolford, “New Guinea’s New Writers Wave the Banner of Nationalism,” Pacific Islands Monthly 41, no. 12 (December 1971), p.49, as quoted in Hamasaki, “Dancing Yet,” p.166.

[37] Apisai Enos, “Niugini Literature: A View from the Editor,” Kovave 4 no. 1 (November 1972), p.46.

[38] Ibid., p.48.

[39] Ibid.

[40] All quotations from “Unity” are taken from Apisai Enos, “Unity,” High Water: Poems, Papua Pocket Poets 24 (1971); John Charles Ryan, “‘If We Return We Will Learn’: Empire, Poetry, and Biocultural Knowledge in Papua New Guinea,” Empire and Environment: Ecological Ruin in the Transpacific, edited by Jeffrey Santa Ana, Heidi Amin-Hong, Rina Garcia Chua, and Zhou Xiaojing, (University of Michigan Press, 2022), p.96.

[41] Enos, “Niugini Literature,” pp.48-49.

[42] Ibid., p.47.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Ryan, “‘If We Return,” p.103.

[45] Enos, “Niugini Literature,” p.48.

[46] “Tapa: Pacific Style- Papua New Guinean tapa,” Museum of New Zealand.

[47]  Irele, “Review of Papuan Parallels,” p.50.

[48] Enos, “Niugini Literature,” p.46.

[49] Ibid.

Bibliography

Poems:

Enos, Apisai. “Unity.” In High Water: Poems. Papua Pocket Poets 24 (1971). http://png.athabascau.ca/docs/ppp24.pdf.

Kasaipwalova, John. “Reluctant Flame.” Pan African Pocket Poets 1 (1971). http://png.athabascau.ca/docs/ppp1971.pdf.

Tawali, Kumalau. “The Bush Kanaka Speaks.” In Signs in the Sky: Poems. Papua Pocket Poets 19 (1970). http://png.athabascau.ca/docs/ppp19.pdf.

Primary Texts:

Enos, Apisai. “Niugini Literature: A View from the Editor.” Kovave 4 no. 1 (November 1972): 46-9. http://png.athabascau.ca/docs/kovave_4_1_72.pdf.

Kasaipwalova, John. “What is Cultural Reconstruction.” New Guinea Writing 3 (March 1971): 14-16. http://png.athabascau.ca/docs/ngw_3_mar_1971.pdf.

Maynard, Donald. “An Interview with Kumalau Tawali.” New Guinea Writing 2 (December 1970): 12-13. http://png.athabascau.ca/docs/ngw_2_dec_1970.pdf.

Secondary Material:

Athabasca University. “Published Series.” Updated October 13, 2016. Accessed April 4, 2023. http://png.athabascau.ca/VirtPublishedSeries.php.

Ellerman, Evelyn. “Learning to Be a Writer in Papua New Guinea.” History of Intellectual Culture 8, no. 1 (2008): 1-16. https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/hic/article/view/68963.

Gorle, Gilian. “Writing in English: Freedom or Frustration? Some Views from Papua New Guinea.” Kunapipi 15, no. 2 (1993): 128-132. https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol15/iss2/19.

Hamasaki, Richard. “Dancing Yet to the Dim Dim's Beat: Contemporary Poetry in Papua New Guinea.” Wansalawara: Soundings in Melanesian History (1987): 157-203. https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/9e7757cf-3ee1-4994-8f35-9ef4ff7c38f7/content.

Irele, Abiola. “Review of Papuan Parallels, by Albert Maori Kiki, John Kasaipwalova, Apisai Enos, Vincent Eri, and Ulli Beier.” Transition, no. 44 (1974): 50–51. https://doi.org/10.2307/2935106.

May, Ronald J. “Nationalism and Papua and New Guinea Writing.” The Australian Quarterly 43, no. 2 (1971): 55-63. https://doi.org/10.2307/20634438.

Museum of New Zealand. “Tapa: Pacific Style- Papua New Guinean tapa.” Accessed April 17, 2023. https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/1947.

Ryan, John Charles. “‘If We Return We Will Learn’: Empire, Poetry, and Biocultural Knowledge in Papua New Guinea.” In Empire and Environment: Ecological Ruin in the Transpacific, edited by Jeffrey Santa Ana, Heidi Amin-Hong, Rina Garcia Chua, and Zhou Xiaojing, 94–110. University of Michigan Press, 2022. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.11580516.10.

Tok-Pisin.com. “Kiap.” Accessed April 7, 2023. https://www.tok-pisin.com/define.php?tokpisin=kiap&id=NzUy.   

Winduo, Steven Edmund. “Papua New Guinean Writing Today: The Growth of a Literary Culture.” Manoa 2, no. 1 (1990): 37–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4228432.