Hawaiian Time

by Cornelia Dedona

Spirits collide with Madame Pele, Ka-moho-ali'i, a shark god, vog, and fish. Take an unflinching look at a false refuge, a hard bargain and feasting on dim sum. Then boogie board to new heights rushing in on the complexities of plastic, cats and intimacy. This liberal utopia takes no prisoners hominid or otherwise.

60 pages, Paperback

Published March 9, 2016

Reviews

[Cornelia DeDona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cornelia DeDona, Hawaiian Time
Both poet and photographer? Each perspective can stand on its own in this exciting collection, “Hawaiian Time”. A New Yorker like me catches the artful wit in the poem, Hawaii Time/ New York time: Hawaiian time/ is tolerant/ expects New York time/ will catch up/ bumbye. DeDona’s images from Hawaii evoke the visual beauty and the unseen spirits of place – seen through her own unique observer’s perspective. DeDona’s photography captures a mood, more than simply reflecting scenery.
Her triumph of will over an abusive relationship becomes transformed into poetic metaphors in the natural worlds of fire and water in Hawaii. Makes me want to go there, having seen it through her eyes, and to learn the totally foreign (to a New Yorker) landscape. Including rainbows.
~Silvershoots (on flickr) aka Susan Lehrer
Cornelia Dedona

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is made up of 28 poems and 15 photographs, separate from the poems. The poems used quite a few words that I assume are Hawaiian, which is pretty cool and fits the theme of the book. Most of the poems had nice imagery (some of them were just too short for much description to be present, which is fine), but my favorite part of them was the formatting. They were not all left centered like most books; the author used the spacing of the words to help tell the story of the poems. My actual favorite part of the book was definitely the photographs, though. They're beautiful.
Note: I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways.