Aloha pumehana. 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. Born and raised on the island of Maui, I was raised by Laieikaiwai (grandmother / gambler / shave ice lady at the laundromat), by shapeshifters and strategists, by aunties who could hula the ocean into a tuna can. As an aloha ʻāina and lifetime “slyly / reproductive” student of Haunani-Kay Trask, I prioritize aloha, gratitude, and collaboration in my practice. Hawaiʻi nei has a long history of literary excellence and I believe our communities contribute powerfully to global traditions of place-based and ancestor-affirming storytelling. I am interested in the many conversations and collaborations that flow from this history toward liberatory futures. I am the author of Ask the Brindled, which was selected as a winner of the National Poetry Series and winner of the Balcones Prize.
Publications
***selected publications in the last four 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
Poems in Journals
“Slang for waterlogged woman,” Beloit Poetry Journal, vol. 27, no. 1-2, 2025, pp. 37-38
“My first death,” Beloit Poetry Journal, vol. 27, no. 1-2, 2025, p. 39
“Keep asking aunties,” Beloit Poetry Journal, vol. 27, no. 1-2, 2025, pp. 31-36
“The ones you pick clean,” The Shade Journal, Apr. 2025
“Root of not,” Michigan Quarterly Review, special guest editor Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, vol. 64, no. 1, winter 2025, pp. 338-339
“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
“Ex is a verb,” Lei Magazine, October 2025, p. 18
“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
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
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
Readings, Lectures, Conversations
“Poetry Talk with Noʻu Revilla,” Poesiefestival Berlin, Haus Für Poesie, Berlin, June 2025
“Writing Identities,” Poesiefestival Berlin, Haus Für Poesie, Berlin, June 2025
Performance and Curated Works
“Ready is a Promise,” Ready, Related Tactics, Honolulu, 2025
“Who Am ‘Ai,” KULEANA, Gallery ʻIolani, Windward Community College, Aug. – Dec. 2025
Residencies & Retreats
Workshop Faculty, Indigenous Nations Poets Retreat, New York, July-Aug. 2025
Areas of Interest
creative writing; poetry; spoken word; Indigenous and decolonial poetics; documentary poetry; hybrid, multi-lingual writing; ʻŌiwi literature and theory; Pasifika poetry and performance; feminist studies; queer theory; cultural studies
Awards
- 2026 11th annual Smithsonian Mother Tongue Film Festival, selected for poetry film Nānā i ke kumu, Washington, D.C.
- 2023 Balcones Prize
- 2021 National Poetry Series
- 2021 Omnidawn Broadside Poetry Prize
- 2019 Biography Prize
Courses
Spring Semester 2026
- ENG-410: Form and Theory of Poetry
- ENG-613B: Graduate Writing Workshop: Poetry
Fall Semester 2026
- ENG-313: Types of Creative Writing
- ENG-411: Poetry Workshop
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