Aloha. I am an ʻŌiwi poet, performer, and educator. My father is a fisherman, my mother is a memory maker, and I descend from moʻo on both sides of my family. I was raised by shapeshifters and strategists, by aunties who could hula the ocean into a tuna can. Unsurprisingly, the body is central to my work. I prioritize aloha, gratitude, and collaboration in my practice. Indeed Hawaiʻi nei contributes to global traditions of place-based, ancestor-affirming, decolonial storytelling that are alive and full of desire, and I am interested in the many collaborations shaped by these connections. In fall 2021, I was selected as a winner of the annual National Poetry Series competition. My debut book of poems Ask the Brindled was published by Milkweed Editions in 2022 and later received the 2023 Balcones Prize.
Publications
***selected publications in the last 3-5 years
Books
Ask the Brindled (poetry), Milkweed Editions, 2022
Poems in Anthologies
“For Gaza,” Poem of the Week, Split This Rock, 2024
McDougall, Brandy, Dana Naone Hall, and Noʻu Revilla, “Aia i hea ka wai o Lahaina?” You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, edited by Ada Limón, Milkweed Editions, 2024
“How to swallow a colonizer,” Poem-a-Day, Academy of American Poets, 2023.
“ʻAi wish you were here,” Wot Da Future: Literarische Dialoge, edited by Elke Atzler and Manfred Müller, Hollitzer, 2023, pp. 118-119
“When You Say ‘Protestors’ Instead of Protectors,” Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World, edited by Pádraig Ó Tuama, Canongate, 2022, p. 106
“bilum, for rosa,” Indigenous Pacific Islander Eco-Literatures, edited by Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, Leora Kava, and Craig Santos Perez, U of Hawaiʻi P, 2022, p. 346
“Memory as Missionary Position,” Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology, edited by Michael Walsh, 2022, pp. 243-244
“Myth Bitch,” Best Microfiction 2021, edited by Meg Pokrass, Gary Fincke, and Amber Sparks, Pelekinesis, 2021
“Shapeshifters Banned, Censored, or Otherwise Shit-Listed, aka Chosen Family Poem,” Living Nations, Living Words, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 2020
“lessons in quarantine” and “Maunakea,” Love in the Time of COVID: A Chronicle of a Pandemic, edited by Witi Ihimaera and Michelle Elvy, 2020
“Smoke Screen,” When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, edited by Joy Harjo, Norton, 2020, pp. 258-259
“After She Leaves You, Femme,” Read Water: An Anthology, edited by Hari Alluri, Garrett Bryant, Amanda Fuller, Lockhorn Press, 2020, p. 82
Poems in Journals
“In the future I write your name” and “Grandmother gets flowers, granddaughter cuts grass,” Journeys, Special issue of Prairie Schooner, edited by Ama Codjoe, 2024
“Recovery, Waikīkī: A Poem for Haunani,” Ocean Feminisms, Special issue of Amerasia Journal, edited by Celia Bardwell-Jones, Joyce Pualani Warren, and Stephanie Nohelani Teves, vol. 48, no. 2, 2022, pp. 187-188
Poems in Magazines
“Because Nāmakaokahaʻi killed her sister,” Poetry Northwest, vol. 17, no. 2, winter/Spring 2023, p. 56
“So sacred, so queer,” Poetry Northwest, Nov. 2022
“Found at Sea” and “Still Life of Nerve on Sixth,” Littéramāʻohi, edited by Chantal Spitz, no. 26, Nov. 2022, p. 193
“Eggs,” Sierra, edited by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, July 2022
“Sucking Sounds, Pōhai Street,” Beloit Poetry Journal, vol. 71, no. 2, fall/winter 2022, p. 65
“Preparing Kaʻuiki,” Split Tongues, Folio in Nat. Brut, no. 15, fall 2021
“Mercy,” ANMLY, no. 31, 2020
“Myth Bitch,” Queer Indigenous Poetics, Folio in ANMLY, edited by tanner menard, no. 30, 2020
“threshold,” wildness, 2020
“Intergenerational Memory,” FLUX, 2019
“Memory as Missionary Position” and “After She Leaves You, Femme,” New Poetry by Queer Indigenous Women, Special series in Literary Hub, edited by Natalie Diaz, 2018
Peer-Reviewed Essays & Articles
Kuwada, Bryan Kamaoli and Noʻu Revilla, “Mana from the Mauna,” Introduction, Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, U of Hawaiʻi Press, 2020, pp. 515-526
Revilla, Noʻu and Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, “Aloha is Deoccupied Love,” Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawaiʻi, Duke UP, 2019, pp. 125-131
Essays in Magazines
“E kuʻu hoa, ke aloha nui iā ʻoe,” Poets & Writers Magazine, vol. 51, no. 5, Sept./Oct. 2023, p. 81
“How to Swallow a Colonizer, or What I Learned from Haunani-Kay Trask,” World Literature Today, vol. 97, no. 5, Sept. 2023, pp. 34-36
“EROSION, A6: Notes on the Waikīkī Blackout Poetry Project,” Pasifika Voices, Special series of PEN Transmissions, 2021
Co-Edited Journal Issues
Kuwada, Bryan Kamaoli and Noʻu Revilla, eds, We Are Maunakea: Aloha ʻĀina Narratives of Protest, Protection, and Place, Special issue of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, U of Hawaiʻi Press, 2020
Book Reviews
Review of Words like Love by Tanaya Winder, Journal of Native American and Indigenous Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, spring 2023, pp. 107-108
Review of Aurum by Santee Frazier, Journal of Native American and Indigenous Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, fall 2022, pp. 193-194
Areas of Interest
creative writing; spoken word; Indigenous and decolonial poetics; lyric essays, hybrid, multi-lingual, and experimental writing; ʻŌiwi literature and theory; Pacific poetry and performance; feminist studies; queer theory; cultural studies
Awards
- 2023 Balcones Prize
- 2021 National Poetry Series
- 2021 Omnidawn Broadside Poetry Prize
- 2019 Biography Prize
Courses
Spring Semester 2025
- ENG-410: Form and Theory of Poetry
- ENG-716C: Techniques in Poetry: Poetry, Media, and the Body
Fall Semester 2024
- ENG-313: Types of Creative Writing
- ENG-613B: Grad Writing Workshop: Poetry
Spring Semester 2024
- ENG-313: Types of Creative Writing
- ENG-416: Studies: Creative Writing
Fall Semester 2023
- ENG-313: Types of Creative Writing
- ENG-625D: Foundations of Creative Writing
Spring Semester 2023
- ENG-313: Types of Creative Writing
- ENG-613B: Grad Writing Workshop: Poetry: Writing Place, Writing Power