WEEK 10
My analysis:
The poem ‘Wild dogs under my skirt’ by Tuisata Avia is a powerful poem to emphasize her Samoan’s identity. The theme of the poem is to tattoo her thighs under her skirt, but the tattoo she wants stands for her identity and culture. As we know, the tattoo is more likely to be a permanent token and hardly to be washed. There are many teenagers or gangs tattoo themselves for just fun and to show their personalities as being “cool” or “authoritative.” Some just tattoo themselves for symbols of permanent love in the relationship. Tuisaka used the word “want” multiple times to demonstrate her desires and prides to show her identity as an appearance of the tattoo.
In the first stanza, “I want to tattoo my legs, not blue or green, but black.” The color of black is an importance of showing her identity of Samoan.
In the second stanza, “I want to sit opposite the tufuga and know he means pain”. ‘Tufuga’ is a Samoan word stands for a builder, I believe here it should mean the person who’s doing her tattoo. She knew the pain of tattoo but insist on doing it is another way to show her desires to show her identity and to show her loyalty.
In the later stanzas, Tuisata mentioned how she wants her legs to be wild Samoan dog’s teeth, black octopus, and black centipedes. Those three things are all strong to show her ambitions and desires to be a strong and powerful Samoan female. The tattoos actually could be a guide to reminder her and people about her culture and identity. The tattoos also can be the power inside her and to fear the enemies.
As an unpowerful person, I don’t have any tattoos, and I’m terrified of the pain. I also don't dare to have one on my body. I can actually relate to it in a different way, every time when I met someone who’s bullying me, I just let them. Because I’m too weak to fight them back, this is just like I’m too weak to have the tattoo. I think people who have the tattoo, usually tend to be brave and strong just like the gangs. I found this poem very interesting and powerful. I can feel the power of Tuisata; I wanted to have the power once I read it.
Original text:
My creative response:
Dark skin under me
I want to dye my hair
A golden white
Or a dark brown
I want to tan up my skin
A dark brown
Or a light black
I want to sit in front of the color technician
Let him play with my hair
Let him use hair bleach
With his magical hands
The pain bestrew my scalp
The black bleached to gold
The pain in my head
brought the beauty in my hair
I look much better now
I want to tan up my skin
Like a mocha
Like a hazelnut
I tanned my skin to brown
A light brown
I look much better now
Like a brown PI
Like a brown Latino
I went shopping to a PI store
I bought a whole outfit
I wore them on me
On my dark skin
I look much better PI now
Reflection:
In this week, I wrote one short poetry bases on Wild dogs under my skirt. The original text is somehow powerful to refer author's Pacific identity. The tattoos she had is to show her power in her culture and how much she wants people to know her identity and her culture. We know people are doing tattoos for just fun or they think it is a symbol of "being cool." My poetry is a completely different story about how I want to change my identity to Pacific identity by tan up the skin and dye the hair. Some are dyeing their hair or tan up their skin for fashion reasons, but my goal is for people seeing me as a Pacific Islander instead of other identities. Being a local undoubtedly earns much more respects than foreigners, the purpose is to show my despairs about how I felt uncomfortable or unconfident to be a foreigner. I tend to let the readers think what's my real purpose, is it because I was born in Pacific islands, but I don't look like any of them, or it is because I'm a foreigner and I want to fit into the Pacific community.
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