808-626-7519
PATRICE M. WILSON
Poet
ABOUT PATRICE M. WILSON
Patrice M. Wilson was born and raised in northern NJ and has lived in NC, CT, MD, DC, VA, and HI. She went to Catholic schools through high school, where she began to write "poems." She was trained at UMD College Park, where she began to write better-crafted and more aesthetically appropriate poems. Later she took an MA in English with Poetry Thesis degree at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, then went on to teach a full load of courses as an instructor at Hawaii Pacific U in Honolulu. These courses included poetry workshops for upper division students, and a literary magazine course as well. During this time, she honed her previous writing and began to publish more often.
In 2005, she finished her doctorate in English Literature, specializing in Pacific Island Literature, Postcolonial Theory, and Composition/Rhetoric. She is now retired and lives in Mililani, in Central Oahu.
.jpg)
MAYBEÂ THIS POEM WILL SAY SOMETHING ABOUT ME . . .
Kukaniloko
Kukaniloko:* A Tribute to O‘ahu
(*Hawaian: “to anchor the cry from within"; the name of birthing stones located in Wahiawa on O‘ahu, on which mothers of the Hawaiian ali‘i birthed their children.)
born to solid distance looming
rock-hard space too large
to fit my heart’s small silent sea
no anchor for that tremulous sigh
from deep within my me
but then one night
such day-sky over palms
and perfectly shaped trees,
plumeria, hibiscus flowering
on that tiny earthen body
in a wide blue peaceful sea
oh yes I cried this island
my anchor place to stay
firm footsteps leading me
no longer a place no place
but where I ought to be
upon this rock this stone
midwife to many years
her shorelines mountains
people's breath that kept my soul
from drifting dead away--
​
HUES OF DARKNESS, HUES OF LIGHT
2013
​
Patrice M Wilson is happy to share her latest work Hues of Darkness, Hues of Light, from eLectio Publishing, 2013, available also on Amazon.com. Her second collection, Rising into Twilight, is still being circulated. While her first full-length collection treats of light and darkness in a more conventionally symbolic way, this one sees darkness/night/blackness as a peaceful, restful, benevolent space, suggesting that light/day/brightness can be a source of discomfort and unrest. It is also concerned with silence, not as absence, but as a presence that can speak.
