Coconut Milk is a fresh, new poetry collection that is a sensual homage to place, people, love, and lust. The first collection by Samoan writer and painter Dan Taulapapa McMullin, the poems evoke both intimate conversations and provocative monologues that allow him to explore the complexities of being a queer Samoan in the United States.
McMullin seamlessly flows between exposing the ironies of Tiki kitsch–inspired cultural appropriation and intimate snapshots of Samoan people and place. In doing so, he disrupts popular notions of a beautiful Polynesia available for the taking, and carves out new avenues of meaning for Pacific Islanders of Oceania. Throughout the collection, McMullin illustrates various manifestations of geopolitical, cultural, linguistic, and sexual colonialism. His work illuminates the ongoing resistance to colonialism and the remarkable resilience of Pacific Islanders and queer-identified peoples.
McMullin’s Fa’a Fafine identity—the ability to walk between and embody both the masculine and feminine—creates a grounded and dynamic voice throughout the collection. It also fosters a creative dialogue between Fa’a Fafine people and trans-Indigenous movements. Through a uniquely Samoan practice of storytelling, McMullin contributes to the growing and vibrant body of queer Indigenous literature.
McMullin seamlessly flows between exposing the ironies of Tiki kitsch–inspired cultural appropriation and intimate snapshots of Samoan people and place. In doing so, he disrupts popular notions of a beautiful Polynesia available for the taking, and carves out new avenues of meaning for Pacific Islanders of Oceania. Throughout the collection, McMullin illustrates various manifestations of geopolitical, cultural, linguistic, and sexual colonialism. His work illuminates the ongoing resistance to colonialism and the remarkable resilience of Pacific Islanders and queer-identified peoples.
McMullin’s Fa’a Fafine identity—the ability to walk between and embody both the masculine and feminine—creates a grounded and dynamic voice throughout the collection. It also fosters a creative dialogue between Fa’a Fafine people and trans-Indigenous movements. Through a uniquely Samoan practice of storytelling, McMullin contributes to the growing and vibrant body of queer Indigenous literature.
McMullin’s Coconut Milk is a brilliant collection of both narrative and avant-garde poems descended from traditional storytelling that give voice to Samoan fa'afafine culture as it continues to flourish in Samoa and in the colonial diaspora.’—Brandy Nalani McDougall, author of The Salt-Wind: Ka Makani Pa’Akai
‘Tiki decor, as the advert says, can remind you and your customers of an exotic and tropical climate. The question posed by Dan Taulapapa McMullin's Coconut Milk is whether we want to be reminded of an exotic and tropical climate, that is to say, of the reality of an exotic and tropical climate, which may be humid, might be fetid, could be bee-stung with breezy beauty, as foreign and falsely friendly as our very own backyards, and as our own sense of family, who we keep, at our peril, in our back seats. Where you might, at your peril, keep these bristling lines.’—Vanessa Place, author of Statement of Facts
Dan Taulapapa McMullin’s poems come at you with a beguiling openness, honesty, irony, humour, and compassion. I love their surface simplicity which draws you into their profound complexities of meaning and feeling. In short, I love them.’—Albert Wendt, author of Leaves of the Banyan Tree
'A must read!’—Rena Owen, Maori actress, writer, and director
Dan Taulapapa McMullin is a Samoan American poet, artist, and painter based in California.
Sa Moana Poems
Tiki Manifesto
‘O Kaulaiku
The Seventh Wave
Turtle Island Poems
In Suva
Laguna Beach Poems
A Drag Queen Named Pipi (at the Bone Bar)
Pray
Fa‘a Fafine Poems
The Bat
Postscript
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