Today we celebrate poet and scholar Dr.Selina Tusitala Marsh – via The Poetry Foundation

Poet and scholar Selina Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tavaluan, English, Scottish, and French descent. She was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and was the first Pacific Islander to earn a PhD in English from the University of Auckland. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Fast Talking PI (2009), which won an NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry and was named a Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards, and Dark Sparring (2013). A noted performer, Marsh represented Tuvalu in the Poetry Olympics in London 2012, and she was named the official Commonwealth poet in 2016.

Marsh’s scholarly work focuses on Maori and Pacific literature and culture. She edits and maintains Pasifika Poetry, a website devoted to preserving and curating the work of Pacific poets. She is a professor at the University of Auckland and co-chair of the South Pacific Association of Language and Literature.

Here’s Dr. Marsh’s TEDx talk:

See more of Dr. Marsh’s work here!