Books published by Pacific Raven Press

Collaborative anthology of poetry between West Oakland and West African poets using Renshi style.

In Red Dreams, Volcano Visions, award-winning author, Kathryn Waddell Takara, PhD, presents contemporary ecological and environment issues in a context of a volcanic eruption. Her aim is to elevate the consciousness from a moral desert of conscience and caring to a level of awareness to transform the abuse of magnificent Nature to another level of respect for life, sustenance, and a healing of the earth.In her poetry, Takara includes Hawaiian mythology, startling photos, disquieting red lava flows and the daily community losses of land, homes, and livelihood. Some speculate that the destruction was caused by ignorance, irreverence for the sacred land and its power, and the greed of the developers who sold land on a high risk rift zone.Takara likewise illuminates the reader about Hawai`i and its people, Kanaka Maole, their spiritual traditions, history, continuing reverence for Nature, and the significance of the ancestral memories, legends, and myths on contemporary culture and life styles.Takara's subtext is a commentary on the climate crisis and dire situation and conditions of our earth. She observes the relationship between man and Nature and the unpredictable and predictable consequences of abuse. She includes philosophical and metaphysical questions of identity, conscience and transformation.She witnesses the neo-colonial and colonial geologies and geographies of resistance and the psychological effects of loss and restoration in a social context of race, class, and culture. Her message: we must get right with the earth.

Njoroge Njoroge, PhD and professor of History, University of Hawaii writes, "In these times of chaos we need, we must, have voices cast out to pull us back together...That's what makes the work of Kathryn Takara so powerful." In critical and compassionate word pictures, Kathryn Takara captures in poetry and selected photos that enhance the power of poetry, the political legacy of a brutal colonial history of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and a tenacious people's struggle for a return to democracy, political power, self-determination, and a dignified survival long after a promised representative government and democracy have failed. However, the reader is left with a feeling of compassion for the people of Zimbabwe who seem to be supported by a spiritual optimism, hope, faith and their ability to laugh even as they cry.

African American attorneys have a lively, colorful history from Justice Thurgood Marshall to President Barack Obama, both of whom have ties to Hawaii. Barbee-Wooten tells the little known stories of some of those attorneys who broke barriers and made their impact on Hawaii's legal landscape, leaving the door open for many more to be told.