Karlo Mila is a poet, mother, researcher, writer and the Programme Director of the Mana Moana Experience at Leadership New Zealand. Of Tongan and Palangi descent, her creative, academic and professional work has all centred on the experiences of Pasifika peoples in Aotearoa, New Zealand. She has two books of poetry and is widely anthologised. She has spent the past five years researching Mana Moana – collating a canon of power words, proverbs, archetypes and narratives from across the Pacific - to be harnessed and vitalised in contemporary life. Karlo is the mother of three boys and lives in Auckland.
Karlo comments: ‘“Mana” is an Oceanic word found in 29 living languages. This poem recognises and reflects on how words indigenous to the region are often not readily translatable in English. I’ve spent years researching Pacific indigenous knowledge. The English language has to be pushed hard—and almost always poetically—to gesture towards the multidimensional meanings of such words. It is a bit like casting out a net and hoping to snare an elusive ever-moving fish. A creature that inevitably has some supernatural qualities. Hopefully, mana is caught alive and thrashing in this poem—or at the very least some of its slippery scales are left on the page.’