Writing
Kalilinoe writes poetry and fiction around the themes of resistance, perseverance, hope, and transformation. There is often a coming-of-age narrative in her work as she navigates the ways one grows into kuleana and nurtures their relationship to community and place. She enjoys playing with genre, form, and language to find honest representations of memories, new expressions of traditional moʻolelo, and abundantly Indigenous reconstructions of the world.
Published Works
"Face Down in the Sand"
Haymarket Books’ Asian American Pacific Islander Anthology 2024 (forthcoming)
"The Tops of Waikiki"
Yellow Medicine Review Fall 2023 Issue
"The Geckos are on Fire"
Academy of American Poets, Poets.org 2023
"Face Down in the Sand"
Academy of American Poets, Poets.org 2022
Readings
"Live Again"
Poetry. Festival of the Pacific ʻAha Kūkā: New Media Storytelling. June 12, 2024.
"Marrow Song"
Indigenous Nations Poets Spring Fellows Reading. May 1, 2024.
The Tops of Waikiki
Graduate Student Showcase, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. April 19, 2024.
"Islands Pressed Upon the Knees"
Arielle Taitano Lowe’s Ocean Mother book launch. March 23, 2024.
"Tomorrow Will"
"Sisters Searching for the New World"
"Face Down in the Sand"
"Live Again"
Honolulu Museum of Art Crosscurrents Guest Artist 2024
"Tomorrow Will"
Poetry & Pāʻina Showcase 2023
"The Gecko's are on Fire"
Library of Congress, In-Na-Po 2022
"Face Down in the Sand"
"The Gecko's are on Fire"
"Haʻi Paʻi"
Graduate Student Showcase 2022
Awards
Selection from Night is a Calabash Mouth
James Welch Indigenous Poets Prize Honorable Mention 2024
Brackish Hour
Patsy Sumie Saiki Prize 1st Place 2024
"Live Again: Rebuilding Intimacy through Mediation"
Biography Prize Honorable Mention 2024
"The Geckos are on Fire"
Academy of American Poets Harold Taylor Prize UHM 2023
The Tops of Waikiki
Patsy Sumie Saiki Prize 1st Place 2023
"Face Down in the Sand"
Academy of American Poets Harold Taylor Prize UHM 2022
“’Face Down in the Sand’ vignettes the singular experience of a diasporic return to an unfamiliar homeland. Through a bonfire retelling of the Night Marchers legend, we are offered a glimpse into the particular (and peculiar) assurances of family and place tinged with loss—loss of story—loss of memory—loss of home.”
--Lyz Soto
"First We Helumoa"
Best Micro-Short Collaboration Prize 2022
"The winners of the 2021 Best Micro-Short Film Contest are Kalilinoe Detwiler and Ryan Gapelu for their submission First We Helumoa. In this short, a freewriting exercise in Sakamaki Hall gives way to a narrative that likens the exploration and worldbuilding of first drafts to chickens scratching and foraging in the moʻolelo of Kaʻauhelumoa: “You dig and dig and soon you are swallowed by the earth….This land is something, this land will grow tall.” Even as the creative writing student remains in Sakamaki Hall, animation brings the moʻolelo to life. Kaona and metaphor are alive here. “How do we begin to write” is a question that many, if not all, creative writers grapple with, whether it is the beginning of a poem, short story, novel, or memoir. The Creative Writing program in English at UH-Mānoa can be part of the answer!"
--Judges Lisette Flanary and Noʻu Revilla
Huli
Robbie Shapard Short-Short Story Prize 2021
Huli
Patsy Sumie Saiki Prize 3rd Place 2021