Alt text for Land Ack by Nicola Andrews

Land Ack

I do not accept your land acknowledgement.

You could do so much more for our sovereign nation

Stop cowering, this is a bland admonishment.

Admin’s chatter is on-brand disparagement

Covering up displacement and termination

I do not accept your land acknowledgement.

It’s hardly a shock we’ve panned your accomplishment

It’s not like you’ve announced occupation cessation

Stop cowering, this is a bland admonishment.

I’m all for a show of planned encouragement

But critical thinking doesn’t take a vacation

I do not accept your land acknowledgement.

My ancestors, maunga, and land have knowledge and

Have survived every thieving colonizer’s creation

Stop cowering, this is a bland admonishment.

Reparations? To start, you can stan my college fund

Thank you very much for your kind donation

I do not accept your land acknowledgement.

Stop cowering, this is a bland admonishment.

Alt text for Defense Mechanism by Nicola Andrews

Defense Mechanism

School holidays, sprawled out

On Nana’s state house verandah.

It’s a candy floss kind of afternoon -

Stretching out endlessly,

Then evaporating in the humidity

Before having to wash up.

Polycarbonate panels free of lichen,

Grass whittled down, without wildflowers.

Nothing ever grows here by accident.

Pansies bloom, mustaches bobbing in the breeze

As a train blares onward, interrupting

The olds on talkback radio.

I’m watching a small puddle dissipate

Under the warming concrete, when

It darts out from a chipped brick: A skink.

Striped, glossy like hard candy, it wavers;

I hold my breath as it flickers to and fro

Before high-stepping forward, basking.

We eye each other, unblinking

And I fail to notice the tell-tale sign

Of cigarette smoke, before my Nan

Slides open the verandah door.

My friend scuttles away, crevice-bound,

Loosed tail twitching at my feet.

They say that when Māui

Transformed into a lizard when

Attempting to cheat Hine-nui-te-pō.

Think of him, elbows pressed

Towards the sky, spine extending to tail.

This form too frail even for a demi-god.

Later, Nana hoses down the concrete

And sends me inside to do a jigsaw

Where all the pieces fit together, and

I’m laughably unaware of everything

I will one day have to discard

In order to survive.

Back Cover alt text

Nicola Andrews starkly outlines what Indigenous people have to reckon with now. In direct, brilliant strokes, Andrews cuts through gaslit narratives of polite society, recasting the world in terms of what our actions mean to the earth, and all the things standing in the way of our languages, land, and the way we stand to protect them. Read this book to meditate on what respect really is, and what it might mean to care.

Chelsea T. Hicks, author of A Calm and Normal Heart

Nicola Andrews is a bright star in Pasifika (Pacific Islander) literature. Their work explores themes of identity, migration, culture, history, and politics through a range of forms, including prose, visuals, sestinas, and villanelles. This poet embodies a fierce decolonial spirit, subversive humor, and wondrous love that their tūpuna (ancestors) would indeed be proud of.

Craig Santos Perez, author of From Unincorporated Territory [åmot], winner of the National Book Award for Poetry

Later, Nana hoses down the concrete
And sends me inside to do a jigsaw
Where all the pieces fit together, and
I’m laughably unaware of everything
I will one day have to discard
In order to survive.

to order Hinting at Decolonization by Nicola Andrews visit www.kithbooks.com/decolonization