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Our Doll’s House – Selina Tusitala Marsh
2024 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow Ahorangi / Professor Selina Tusitala Marsh shared this poem at her award ceremony as an acceptance speech, and generously let us share it with you.
Our Doll’s House
(Italicized lines cited from Mansfield’s The Doll’s House, 1922)
"I seen the little lamp," she said softly
A PI poet pantoums every face
Our nation's doll's house: splintered, costly
I am insider-outsider in this place
A PI poet pantoums every face
Where girls eat sandwiches under the pines
I am insider-outsider in this place
Straddling cultures, crossing unseen lines
Where girls eat sandwiches under the pines
Like the Kelveys I linger on the edge
Straddling cultures, crossing unseen lines
In Menton I’ll hear her pledge
Like the Kelveys I linger on the edge
Our nation's doll's house: splintered, costly
In Menton I’ll hear her pledge:
"I seen the little lamp," she said softly