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After three national poetry championship wins serving as a poetry mentor, and later becoming a Ford Fellow, Jamaica Osorio knows the power of the pen. As a queer Kanaka Maoli wahine artist, activist, and scholar, Heoli’s life trajectory changed when she was introduced to slam poetry at 17, and later went on to win the Brave New Voices poetry competition in 2008.

“It was a surprise that I got involved in poetry because I grew up in an immersion school, which meant that I didn’t learn to write formally in English until fifth grade,” Heoli told The Fader.

Osario overcame such insecurities, rising to critical acclaim in the poetry world after performing at the White House for then-President Obama in 2009. In 2020, her poetry and activism were the subject of an award-winning film, “This is the Way We Rise,” featured on Vogue.com and at the Sundance Film Festival. Of poetry’s true power, Heoli says, “If it doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, conjure a memory, or give you chicken skin, the poem’s useless to me. A poem is as good as it resonates.”

Osario continues to invoke memory, resistance, and pilina (Hawaiian for “connection,” among other ) in her work, progressing justice movements across Hawaii and beyond. “I think we’re starving for intimacy,” Osorio told filmmaker Ciara Lacy. Osorio explories intimacies – and other dimensions of Native Hawaiian relationality, desire, and belonging – in Remembering Our Intimacies, her latest publication.

“Let me plant you a fortress of rumbling lehua trees, each blossom a promise to return my love,” Osorio writes in “He Mele no Hōpoe: A dedication.” Embedded in Osorio’s lyrical stanzas are critical arguments about Hawaiian identity and resilience: equal parts hymn and history.

Osorio’s latest project, “On the Morning You Wake (To the End of the World),” is a one-of-kind virtual reality documentary exploring the imminent threat of nuclear weapons to Native Hawaiians, premiering at this year’s Sundance film festival. At only 31 years old, Osorio continues to forge new possibilities for literature, language and activism – she is a force to be reckoned with for generations to come.