Kathryn Waddell Takara, Ph.D.

Writer

〰️

Poet

〰️

Professor Emerita

〰️

Historian

〰️

Researcher

〰️

Writer 〰️ Poet 〰️ Professor Emerita 〰️ Historian 〰️ Researcher 〰️

Biography

Poet and professor Kathryn Waddell Takara was born in 1943 in Tuskegee, Alabama to Lottie and Dr. William Waddell IV. After graduating from George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania, she earned her B.A. degree from Tufts University in 1965, her M.A. degree in French from the University of California at Berkeley in 1969, and her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in 1995.

In 1971, Takara joined the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa as an assistant professor, where she developed courses in African American and African politics, history, literature, and culture. During her thirty-one year career at the university, she rose to associate professor in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program and also taught French. Her poetry has been published in a wide range of journals and anthologies including the Interdisciplinary Studies Humanities Journal, Honolulu Stories, Words Upon the Waters, The African Journal of New Poetry, Arkansas Review, Africa Literary Journal, Julie Mango Press, Poetry Motel, Peace & Policy, From Totems to Hip Hop, Hawai'i Review, Chaminade Literary Review, All She Wrote: Hawai'i Women's Voices, and World of Poetry: An Anthology. Her essays have appeared in the Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, The Black Scholar, Multi-America: Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace, The Western Journal of Black Studies, and The Honolulu Advertiser.

In 2003, Takara launched Pacific Raven Press, serving as its owner, editor, and publisher. Her published books include New and Collected Poems (2003), Pacific Raven: Hawai'i Poems (2009), Tourmalines: Beyond the Ebony Portal (2010), African Americans in Hawai'i (2010, edited), Timmy Turtle Teaches (2012), Frank Marshall Davis: The Fire and the Phoenix (2012), Love's Seasons: Generations, Genetics, Myths (2014), Zimbabwe Spin: Politics and Poetics (2015), Shadow Dancing: $elling $urvival in China (2017), Footprints Wings Phantasms (2018), Red Dreams Volcano Visions (2019), Seasons in Haiku (2022), and Root Tappin': A Poet's Journey (2025).

She has performed her poetry and lectured extensively throughout the Hawaiian Islands, the continental United States, and in Beijing and Qingdao, China. A two-time Fulbright Fellow (1966 and 1996) and recipient of the University of Hawai'i Board of Regents Outstanding Teacher Award, she received the 2010 American Book Award for Pacific Raven: Hawai'i Poems, was knighted into the Orthodox Order of St. John, Russian Grand Priory in 2014, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Education and African American History and Culture in Hawai'i from the NAACP in 2016.

Back to Top

Overview

EDUCATION

  • Ph.D. Political Science — University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, 1993

  • M.A. French — University of California, Berkeley, 1969

  • B.A. French — Tufts University, Jackson College, 1965

  • Certificate, Chinese Studies — University of Peking, Beijing, China, 1995

  • Certificate, Mandarin I — University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, 1996–97

  • Certificate — University of Bordeaux, France, 1965–66

  • Study Abroad — Pau, France, 1962

  • Crossroads Africa — Niamey, Niger, 1963

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

2008–2025 — Writing Workshops, Editor

2004–2007 — Professor, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Interdisciplinary Studies Program

1997–2003 — Assistant Professor, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Ethnic Studies Department

1982–1997 — Instructor/Lecturer, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Ethnic Studies Program

Summer 1998 — Visiting Professor, University of Qingdao, China — American Cultural Studies and Conversational English

1976–1980 — Lecturer, University of Hawai'i Windward Community College — French

1971–1974 — Lecturer and Instructor, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Ethnic Studies

1969–1971 — Hawai'i Loa College (Hawai'i Pacific University) — French

1967–1968 — U.C. Berkeley — Teaching Assistant, French

COURSES DEVELOPED

  • The African Diaspora (IS 498)

  • The African American Experience Parts I & II (ES 305–306)

  • African American Women's Literature in the 20th Century (IS 407)

  • Introduction to Ethnic Studies (ES 101)

  • Ethnic Identity (ES 301)

  • Texts and Textiles / Color, Colonialism and Cloth (co-created with Dr. Pat Hickman)

  • Black Americans (ES 205)

Back to Top
Root Tappin’ Book Signing (Honolulu, 2026)

Root Tappin’ Book Signing (Honolulu, 2026)

Root Tappin’ Book Signing (Honolulu, 2026)

Root Tappin’ Book Signing (Honolulu, 2026)

At home on Inspiration Deck (Honolulu, 2026)

At home on Inspiration Deck (Honolulu, 2026)

Poetry Reading (Waimea 2026)

Poetry Reading (Waimea 2026)

Kathryn Takara (Morro Bay, California 2023)

Kathryn Takara (Morro Bay, California 2023)

Writers Across Oceans Writing Retreat (Waimea, 2026)

Writers Across Oceans Writing Retreat (Waimea, 2026)

Writers Across Oceans Writing Retreat (Waimea, 2026)

Writers Across Oceans Writing Retreat (Waimea, 2026)

Poetry Healing History Politics African-American Cultural Environmental Poetry

Professional Affiliations

  • National League of American Pen Women (Current Chair of Membership)

  • The Links, Inc. (Secretary, Strategic Plan Committee, Arts Facets)

  • Academy of American Poets

  • American Academy of Poets

  • NAACP

  • The Rotary Waialae Kahala

  • Fulbright Alumni Association

  • Western Political Science Association

  • Hawai'i Literary Arts Council

  • African Heritage Cultural Center

  • National Association of Professional Women

  • The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

  • African American Educational Center in Hawai'i

  • American Association of University Women

  • East-West Center (Colleague Level)

Back to Top

Honors & Awards

2023
Outstanding Faculty Award — Alice Ball Black Graduation Planning Committee, University of Hawai'i

2021
Name Engraved on Plaque — Kepaniwai Park, Maui African American Association

2020
Honoree — Hawai'i State Art Museum, Black Futures Ball (The Popolo Project) — For Contributions to Black History and Culture in Hawai'i

2016
Lifetime Achievement Award — Freedom Fighter Award, NAACP Honolulu Branch


Knighthood — Inducted into the Saint John Priory, Honolulu Priory at Kaaaihae High Church; Commendation Dame of Honor

2015
Name on Monument — Kepaniwai Park/Heritage Gardens, Iao Valley State Park — "Honoring the People, Sustaining the Earth: Building Cultural Bridges, Outstanding African Americans in Hawaii"


Acknowledgment/Award — Ceremonial Tribute to Inclusion in Diversity, AAOMA — Contributions to the State of Hawaii in Higher Education

2010
American Book Award — Before Columbus Foundation, San Francisco, CA (for Pacific Raven: Hawaii Poems)


Lifetime Achievement Award — Pioneering Work, Teaching, and Research on Blacks in Hawaii, Wailuku, Maui

2009–2010
Cambridge Who's Who Registry Among Executive and Professional Women

2008–2009
Madison Who's Who Among Executives and Professionals, Honors Edition

2000–2009
International Who's Who of Professional and Business Women

2004
Vagina Warrior Award — Girl Fest Hawaii and The Safe Zone Honolulu

2000–2005
Who's Who Among America's Teachers

2000
Partnership Award — United States Census 2000

1999
 The History Makers National Award — Archival Collection for Well-Known African Americans with Significant Contributions to American Life, Society, and Culture

1989
 Golden Poet Award — World of Poetry

1965–1966
 Fulbright Fellowship — Bordeaux, France (Translation of West African and Caribbean Poetry, French to English)

Back to Top

In the Media

TELEVISION APPEARANCES

  • Think Tech Hawaii-OC16 — Featured Person, Honolulu, 2016

  • Interview — "Obama's America: What it Means to Be Black in Hawaii," TV One/RCTI TV (Indonesia), 2010

  • Documentary — We've Come This Far by Faith, Dr. Miles Jackson, 2008

  • "First Works" — Featured, reciting poetry with B-roll of Ka'a'awa, Hawai'i, April–May 2005

  • Olelo — Three programs on Zimbabwe and Black Panther Party Legacy, 2001

  • Hawai'i Public Television (KHET) — Interview with Dr. Maya Angelou and Poetry Reading, November 1994 (aired PBS Western U.S., reruns 1994–2000)

  • KHNL (Fox 13) — One-hour interview on "African American Visions," June 1994

  • KHON2 News — Black History Month Segment, February 2021

  • KITV Na Mea Pono — Ka'a'awa Post Office Proponent segment, February 2022

  • KHET — Associate Producer, Rice and Roses (Documentary on Frank Marshall Davis), July 1987

  • KHET — Translations, Hokule'a: A Voyage of Discovery, 1987

  • Channel 20 — Multiple appearances including "African American Visions," "Ka'a'awa Country," and guest commentator, 1987–90

  • AVRO Televizier — Amsterdam, Netherlands, Civil Rights Reunion interview, 1989

RADIO INTERVIEWS

  • Steel Pulse / David Hinds Interview — Honolulu, 2025

  • Womanocity, WOMan Radio — February 2022

  • Guest Interviewee, Mother-Lines Stories — WOMan Radio, March 2023

  • Wanda's Picks Radio Show — National Poetry Month, July 2020

  • KHPR "The Conversation" with Kathy Kozak — June 2015

  • Radio Interview with Kim McMillon, "Arts in the Valley" — December 2013

  • Radio Interview with Raven Magwood — Raven Magwood Radio Show, South Carolina, March 2010

  • Wanda's Picks on Blog Talk Radio — Black Arts and Culture Show, Oakland, CA, August 2009

  • Newspaper Interviews on Frank Marshall Davis and Barack Obama — Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Daily Telegraph of London, Associated Press, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Star Bulletin, 2008

  • KPFA Radio — Interview and Poetry Reading, Berkeley, CA, July 2003

  • KPOO Radio — Interview and Poetry Reading, San Francisco, CA, July 2003

  • Wanda's Picks, Blog Talk Radio — August 2009

  • The History Makers — December 2019

POETRY FESTIVALS

Organized poetry festivals in the Downtown Art Gallery, Honolulu

  • 2026 Root Tappin’

  • 2024 Seasons

  • 2022 Shadow Dancing

Speaking Engagements

    • Featured Reader — Soroptimist International, Waikiki

    • Featured Poet — Writers Across Oceans 2026 Retreat

    • Steel Pulse Interview with David Hinds

    • Generational Trauma Panelist — Unity Church

    • Medicine for Nightmares — San Francisco

    • National League of American PEN Women

    • Motherline Interview — International Women's History Month

    • Guest Interviewee — Woman Radio, Mother-Lines Stories

    • Speaker, Performance Poetry — Black History Month Celebration, African Americans on Maui Association, February 12

    • Speaker — Juneteenth: Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Trailblazers, African Americans on Maui Association, June 19

    • Poetry Panelist / French Translator — Wombfulness Gatherings, San Francisco Public Library, March 19

    • Panelist — "Never Justify Your Truth: Black Women Navigating Constructed White Women Female Spaces," Piko Dance Arts Program, February 5

    • Interviewee — Ka'a'awa Post Office Proponent, KITV Na Mea Pono segment, February 3

    • Opening Poem — O'ahu County Democrats 2022 eConvention, March 19

    • Seasons in Haiku Poetry Reading — Bird & Beckett Books & Records, San Francisco, July 18

    • Featured Poet — Black History Month Program, African Americans on Maui Association, February 5

    • Guest Presenter — Black History Month, University of Hawai'i – Hilo, February 17

    • Book Signing and Poetry Reading: Sisters Across Oceans, June 4

    • Poetry Reading: Sisters Across Oceans, Sisters Empowering Hawai'i, February 24

    • Host — Juneteenth Lunch & Learn Celebration, Sisters Empowering Hawaii, June 19

    • Host — Creative Writing Community Workshops, Benefitting Hawaii Links Youth Programs, November

    • Guest Interviewee — Womanocity, WOMan Radio, February

    • Performance Poet — Lyrics Limericks & Literature, The Links Incorporated, April 10

    • Featured Poet — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebration, African Americans on Maui Association, January 18

    • Featured Poet — National Woman's History Month Celebration, African Americans on Maui Association, March 21

    • Gaia Healer — Wombfulness Gatherings (Virtual Wellness Workshops for Black Women), September 18

    • Poetry Reader — International Virtual Poetry Festival, Pen + Brush, May 23

    • Speaker — Kwanzaa Celebration via Zoom, African Americans on Maui Association, December 28

    • Featured Poet — 31st Annual Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry, February 6

    • KHON2 News Interviewee — Black History Month Segment, February

    • Opening Poem — Honolulu Museum, African American Film Festival Tribute to Toni Morrison, February 15

    • Featured Poet — Wake-Up America! Poetathon, June 21

    • Virtual Poetry Reading — Black Fire — This Time, August 16

    • Guest Poet — National Poetry Month, Wanda's Picks Radio Show, July 1

    • Interviewee — MLK: A King in Paradise, July 14

    • Interviewee — Infinite Variety Productions (Alice Ball Research), date TBD

    • Interviewee — Hawai'i Herald Newspaper, 2020 Primary Election Issue, July 17

    • Honoree/Poetry Reading — Black Futures Ball, Hawai'i State Art Museum, February 29

    • Interviewee. The History Makers. December 10 2019.

    • Presentation — U.S. Army Health Clinic, National African American History Month, Schofield Barracks, February

    • Poetry Readings — Beijing University Bookstore, Beijing, China, May–June

    • Lectures — Beijing University of Foreign Studies (Bei Wai), May–June

    • Lectures — University of Qingdao, June

    • Poetry Reading — Temple of Peace, Maui, March

    • Poetry Reading — Basically Books, Hawaii Island, April

    • Poetry Reading — Evening of Jazz, Hawaii State Art Museum, Honolulu, July

    • Poetry Reading — National League of American Pen Women, Pacific Club, Honolulu, May

    • Poetry Reading — Center for Chinese Studies, UH Manoa, March

    • Poetry Reading — Arts at Mark's Garage, Honolulu, March

    • Poetry Reading — African American Film Festival, Honolulu Museum of Art, February

    • Poetry Reading — International School of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, March

    • Poetry Reading — American Embassy, Ivory Coast, March

    • Educational Presentation — FRAUHM Annual Meeting, Honolulu, September

    • Kahuku Library — Poetry and Guitar Performance, June

    • Salon — Honolulu Bookies Club, January

    • Poetry Reading — American Embassy, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, July

    • Forum — "Feminism in African and African American Women's Poetry," Abidjan American International School, June

    • Africa Night — Poetry Reading, Windward Passage, November

    • Poetry Reading — Hawai'i Friends of Civil Rights, "A Star-Studded Evening of Jazz & Gospel," Hawaii State Art Museum, August

    • National League of American Pen Women — Poetry, The Pacific Club, Honolulu, May

    • Aloha Book Festival — Panelist and Poetry Reading, Kapalua, Maui, January

    • Grand Marshal and Keynote Speaker — Martin Luther King Day March, Wailuku, Maui, January

    • Martin Luther King Day: The Living Dream Concert — Kapiolani Park Bandstand, January

    • Juneteenth Celebration Poetry Reading — Downtown Honolulu, Chinatown, June

    • Hawaii Book and Music Festival — Publisher's Booth, Children's Pavilion (Timmy Turtle Teaches), May

    • Ala Moana Center Stage — Cultural Diversity Awareness Day, February

    • University of Hawai'i at Hilo — "African Americans in Hawaii: A Search for Identity," February 28

    • Martin Luther King Day: The Living Dream Concert — Kapiolani Park Bandstand, January

    • Delta Sigma Theta Book Club — Featured Speaker, Tourmalines, Mililani, March 25

    • Ala Moana Park Pavilion — Juneteenth: No More Slavery, June

    • African American Heritage Month — Featured Speaker, Pearl Harbor Hickman Memorial Chapel, February 24

    • Hawaii Book and Music Festival — Publisher's Booth, May

    • Temple of Peace — Conscious Convergence, Makawao, Maui, July 17

    • Maui Arts and Cultural Center — Book Release, African Americans in Hawaii, Keynote Speaker, February 20

    • Barnes and Noble — Book Signing, Pacific Raven: Hawaii Poems, Kahala Mall, August 22

    • Borders Book Store — Book Signing, Pacific Raven: Hawaii Poems, Pearl Ridge, August

    • Maafa/Hurricane Katrina Memorial — Featured Poet, Shashamane International Bar & Grill, Oakland, CA, August 30

    • Rebecca's Books — "An Evening with Mother and Daughter Poets," Berkeley, CA, January 3

    • Book Launch — Pacific Raven: Hawaii Poems, Thirty Nine Hotel, Honolulu, August 6

    • Links, Inc. Hawaii Chapter — Poetry Reading, Hyatt Regency Waikiki, May 30

    • Lecture and Poetry — Black History Celebration, Saipan and Guam, Northern Marianas, January

  • Winter Institute — "Telling the Story: Blacks in America and the Pacific," University of Hawaii, January

  • Delta Blues Symposium XII — "Taj Mahal: Prince of the Blues," Arkansas State University, March

  • Item descriptionTeaching — Beijing University of Technology, May 27–July 10

    • 2 Seminars — National Women's Federation, Beijing, June

    • Black Oak Books — Poetry Reading, Berkeley, CA, March 21

    • Barnes and Noble — "Divine Madness — Women Poets," Berkeley, CA, March 18

    • Seven Stones Coffee House — Philadelphia, PA, February 26

    • Amherst University — Lecture and Poetry Readings

    • The Bowery Poetry Club — Featured Poet, New York City, July 26

    • 6th Annual National Harlem Book Fair — Panelist, Schomburg Center, New York City, July 24

    • Gathering of the Tribes — Poetry Reading with Ishmael Reed, SoHo, New York City, July 25

    • City Lights Book Store — Featured Poetry Reading, San Francisco, February 24

    • Texas Book Festival — Featured Poet/Panelist, Austin TX, November 7–8

    • Houston Tillotson College — Featured Lecturer and Poetry, November

    • University of Texas at Austin — Guest Poet, November

    • Chappie James Museum — "Blacks in Hawaii," Tuskegee University, Alabama, November 10

    • Unity Church of Hawaii — Guest Speaker, Peace and Non-Violence Memorial Service, March 16

    • Hawaii Theater — Vagina Monologues, Choreopoem, February 15

    • Honolulu Academy of Arts — "Celebration of the Artistic Traditions of African Americans: Quilts," April 26

    • KPFA Radio Interview and Poetry Reading — Berkeley, CA, July 23

    • KPOO Radio Interview and Poetry Reading — San Francisco, CA, July 25

    • Pacific Club — Annual Meeting, Women's History Club, Featured Speaker, March 21

    • NAACP Membership Rally — Poetry Reading, Harris United Methodist Church, May 17

    • Poetry Reading — Richards Street YWCA, "A Jazz Cultural Journey: Tribute to Duke Ellington," April 5

    • Keynote Address — African Diaspora in Hawai'i, UHM, February 28

    • Maryknoll High School — Featured Speaker, Black History Month (600 students), February

    • Kapono's, Aloha Tower Marketplace — Featured Poet with Ishmael Reed, February 8

    • Barnes and Noble — Book Signing and Reading, Kahala, February 8

    • African Black American Education Center Hawai'i — Panelist, "Conversations: Part Three," May 4

    • Historical Re-enactment — Mission House Museum, "Alice Ball (Black Pioneer)," March 23

    • Poetry Reading — University of Hawai'i Kennedy Theatre, "The Vagina Monologues," March 2–3

    • Poetry Reading — The Wave Waikiki, "Voices Will Be Heard," April 2

    • Historical Re-enactment — Mission House Museum, "Betsy Stockton," February 23


    • African Black American Education Center — Panelist, "Conversations: Part Two," May 19

    • African Heritage Cultural Center — Summit on Africa, Choreopoems, April 14

    • Poetry Reading — Native Books, Kalihi, May 5

    • Poetry Reading — Honolulu Academy of Arts, "Kwanzaa 2001," December 31

    • Maui Arts Cultural Center — Keynote Speaker, African Americans in Hawaii, February 20

    • NAACP Martin Luther King Dinner — Introduction of Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient Dr. Miles Jackson, January 16

  • 2004
    Vagina Warrior Award — Girl Fest Hawaii and The Safe Zone Honolulu

    2000–2005
    Who's Who Among America's Teachers

    2000
    Partnership Award — United States Census 2000

    1999
     The History Makers National Award — Archival Collection for Well-Known African Americans with Significant Contributions to American Life, Society, and Culture

    1989
     Golden Poet Award — World of Poetry

    1965–1966
     Fulbright Fellowship — Bordeaux, France (Translation of West African and Caribbean Poetry, French to English)

  • 1989

    • AVRO Televizier — Amsterdam, Netherlands, Interview in Montgomery, Alabama, 1989

    1986

    • Hickam Air Force Base — Keynote Speaker, Black Heritage Observation, February

    • Volcano Art Center — Poetry & Dance Performance, "The Rites of Remembering," May

    1985

    • Bishop Museum — Women's Week Panel, March

    • Aloha Theater, Pearl Harbor — Poetry Reading, February

Back to Top

Publications

    • Root Tappin' — Pacific Raven Press, 2025

    • Seasons in Haiku — Pacific Raven Press, 2022

    • Red Dreams Volcano Visions — Pacific Raven Press, 2019

    • Footprints Wings Phantasms — Pacific Raven Press, 2018

    • Shadow Dancing: $elling $urvival in China — Pacific Raven Press, 2017

    • Zimbabwe Spin: Politics and Poetics — Pacific Raven Press, 2015

    • Love's Seasons: Generations, Genetics, Myths — Pacific Raven Press, 2014

    • Frank Marshall Davis: The Fire and the Phoenix (Critical Biography) — Pacific Raven Press, 2012

    • Timmy Turtle Teaches (Children's Book) — Pacific Raven Press, 2012

    • Tourmalines: Through the Ebony Portal — Pacific Raven Press, 2010

    • African Americans in Hawai'i (edited) — Pacific Raven Press, 2010

    • Pacific Raven: Hawai'i Poems — Pacific Raven Press, 2009 (Winner, 2010 American Book Award)

    • New and Collected Poems — I. Reed Publishing Co., Berkeley, CA, 2003

    • When The Moon Rises by Leanna Day, 2024

    • Sisters Across Oceans (Anthology), 2021

    • A Silhouette in Time by Lili, 2021

    • Close Caskets by Donte Clark, 2021

    • Our Spirits Carry Our Voices (Anthology, edited by Karla Brundage), 2019

    • African American Lawyers in Hawai'i by Daphne Barbee Wooten, Esq., 2010

    • Tales from the Bench by Judge Sandra Simms, 2012

    • African Americans in Hawai'i by Ayin Adams, 2010

    • "Stolen Jewels" / "Sweet Honey in the Rock" — Black Fire This Time, Aquarius Press, 2022

    • "Frank Marshall Davis" — Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance, University of Illinois Press, 2010

    • "10,000 Moments in China: 47 Poems" — Interdisciplinary Humanities Journal, University of Louisiana Press, Fall 2007

    • "A View from the Academic Edge" — Du Bois Review, Harvard/Cambridge University Press, Fall 2006

    • "Betsy Stockton and Alice Ball: Black Women Pioneers in Hawai'i" — The Black Scholar, Spring 2006

    • "The Black Diaspora in Hawai'i" — Social Process in Hawai'i, Fall 2004

    • "Frank Marshall Davis: A Forgotten Voice in the Chicago Black Renaissance" — The Western Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4, Winter 2002

    • "Frank Marshall Davis and the Chicago Black Renaissance" — Humanities in the South, 2002

    • "Frank Marshall Davis and 1930s Black Journalism in Atlanta" — The Black Scholar, Vol. 30, No. 3, 2000

    • "Frank Marshall Davis in Hawai'i: Outsider Journalist Looking In" — Social Process in Hawai'i, Vol. 39, 1999

    • "The Rage and the Passion in the Poetry of Frank Marshall Davis" — The Black Scholar, Vol. 26, No. 2, 1996

    • Interview: "New Directions in Black Western Studies" — Freedom's Frontier: African Americans in the West, Syracuse University Press, 2017

    • Black Hollywood, Unchained (with Amiri Baraka, Houston Baker, Ntozake Shange, and others) — 3rd World Press, 2015

    • "Trailblazers: Buffalo Soldiers in Hawaii" — Hana Hou (Hawaiian Airlines In-Flight Magazine), February 2010

    • "The Black Diaspora in Hawai'i" — Follow the Trade Winds, University of Hawai'i Press, 2005

    • "It Happens All the Time — Or Does It?" — MULTIAMERICA: Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace, Viking Press, 1997

    • "Who is the Black Woman in Hawai'i" — Montage: An Ethnic History of Women in Hawai'i, 1977

    • "African Americans in Hawai'i" — Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History, Supplement, MacMillan, 2000

    • "African Americans in Hawai'i" — Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History, MacMillan, 1995

    • Bamboo Ridge Press, Open Access Edition, 2021

    • Tribes Black Lives Matter Publication, 2021

    • Chaminade Literary Review, 2015, 2002, 1998, 1994, 1988

    • Bamboo Ridge, 25th Anniversary Issue, Spring 2004

    • Hawaii Review, multiple issues 1986–2004

    • From Totems to Hip Hop (Anthology, edited by Ishmael Reed), Avalon Publishing, 2003

    • Literary Studies East and West, University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 2001

    • Kaimana: Literary Arts Hawai'i, multiple issues 1994–2001

    • O'ahu Review, 1997

    • Rainbird, Windward Community College, multiple issues 1984–1994

    • Ramrod, Iron Bench Press, multiple issues 1985–1991

    • Bamboo Ridge, No. 21, Winter 1983

Back to Top

Poetry Collections

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.

Red Dreams, Volcano Visions

Pacific Raven Press, 2019

Learn more

Seasons in Haiku

Pacific Raven Press,, 2022

Seasons in Haiku, divided into the four seasons, is a provocation to consider the state of our relationships with the seasons which Takara calls Song, Shimmer, Shadows and Sojourn. If we follow in the author's footsteps and give this matter some attention, we likely will share her journey in moving into an active state of intention to change the aspects of our harmful human behavior which is altering seasonal cycles and amplifying the current climate crises. Lest you feel overwhelmed by the looming specter of an Armageddon-like climate debacle, be assured that Takara remains a poet, not a preacher.

Learn more

Footprints Wings Phantasms

Pacific Raven Press, 2018

Takara delivers an inspiring parapsychological philosophy readers will want to share with others. We all struggle to overcome life’s inevitable sufferings. Answering that challenge, Takara paves creative paths to transformational self-actualization. Flying across time and space, swimming through instructive deserts and gratefully quenching our souls at oases, we can unite with one another and with every entity in our beloved universe.

Learn more

Root Tappin’ is a mature and multifaceted poetry collection reflecting Kathryn Takara’s deep exploration of identity, ancestry, and life’s complexities across eight decades. The poems navigate difficult ancestral histories, notably growing up Black in the Jim Crow South, while revealing an ability to transform pain into beauty through vivid imagery of nature, such as wild turtles, flowers, and sunsets. The poems incorporate moments of tenderness and extend to broader meditations on selfhood, wisdom, and resilience, affirming life and love even amid hardship. The collection resonates with musicality and emotional depth, inviting readers to engage with its truths and find inspiration and freedom within its pages.

Root Tappin’

Pacific Raven Press, 2026

Love's Seasons: Generations Genetics Myths

Pacific Raven Press, 2014

A blended collection of poetry using storytelling at its best with songs and lessons of history, love, culture and a path of personal transformation. Takara moves easily from Alabama backyards, rural Hawaii, northern China and also into the realms of ritual, the mystical, using rhythms of nature, relations and spicy moments to inform, captivate, elucidate, and inspire the reader.

Learn more

Shadow Dancing: $elling $urvival in China (Trilogy: Book 3)

Pacific Raven Press,, 2016

Award winning author Dr Kathryn Waddell Takara provides a compelling and intimate traveling stage through her pictorial poems that witness her impressions of the waking of a sleeping dragon - the New China, including the startling successes and disquieting obstacles and corruption. She likewise illuminates the reader of Chinese spiritual qualities, history, and their continuing reverence for knowledge, ancestors, and nature. Most strikingly, Takara experienced the historically raicially unfamiliar climate for many Black people who have sojoured in China.

Learn more

Zimbabwe Spin: Politics and Poetics

Pacific Raven Press, 2015

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.

Learn more

Timmy Turtle Teaches draws inspiration from the magic of turtles-magnificent creatures who have a cherished place in the imaginations of peoples throughout the world. Meet Sugar Daisy, her family and friends and travel with her as she journeys from one powerful adventure to the next from Alabama to the East Coast, France, West Africa. and Hawai`i. Ethnicity, culture, and travel reveal the similarities in people and the diversity in places that educate the readers both young and old. Experience the life lessons of Sugar Daisy and Timmy Turtle. For some cultures, the turtle's back symbolizes heaven, its body the earth, and its belly the underworld; for others, the shell represents the dome of heaven and heavenly virtue; still others see in turtle magic the possibility of uniting heaven and earth, with the turtle a symbol of creation.

Timmy Turtle Teaches

Pacific Raven Press, 2012

Learn more

Frank Marshall Davis: The Fire and the Phoenix (a Critical Biography)

Pacific Raven Press, 2012

Frank Marshall Davis: The Fire and the Phoenix (A Critical Biography) is a compelling historical biography about Frank Marshall Davis (1907-1987), journalist, editor, poet, labor activist, and Renaissance man of the Black Chicago Renaissance. He wrote expansively about social relations of his times and the failures of democracy, recorded his observations on race relations, African American culture and community, and critiqued economic disparities in the USA and imperialism in Hawaii. Kathryn Waddell Takara writes with an uncanny ability to dissect the humanity of Frank Marshall Davis and to explore the myths and legacy that Davis left to the world, applicable to the 21st century.

Learn more

Tourmalines: Beyond the Ebony Portal is a collection of poems with a focus on Black history and African Americans, named and unnamed. Black lives are represented as various, colorful gemstones and themes corresponding to the colorful tourmaline gemstones with a variety of characteristics and healing properties. Because every tourmaline is different, one can use the stones as metaphors for the diversity of African Americans who are mixed with people of various origins: African, Native American, European and Euro American, Caribbean, South American, and Asian. This cultural melange produces in Tourmalines a rich, colorful collection of poetic gemstones.

Tourmalines Beyond the Ebony Portal

Pacific Raven Press, 2010

Learn more

Pacific Raven: Hawai’i is a powerful and lyrical collection of poetry by Dr. Kathryn Waddell Takara that explores themes of nature, spirituality, love, history, solitude, aging, and transformation. Drawing inspiration from the landscapes and cultural richness of the Pacific Islands, Takara’s poems immerse readers in vivid imagery and emotional depth while confronting both the beauty and darker realities of life. Her evocative voice blends compassion, imagination, and spiritual reflection, creating a deeply moving reading experience that invites readers into a world of mystery, resilience, and poetic wonder.

Pacific Raven: Hawai’i Poems

Pacific Raven Press, 2009

Learn more
Back to Top

Booking Inquiries