Joe Balaz: Hawaiian in Ohio

“Hawaiian In Ohio”

This page is a complement to Joe Balaz’s one-person performance that took place on July 22, 2023, at the Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. The video is available online on YouTube.

The performance was co-sponsored by the Hawaiʻi Center for the Book along with the Mānoa Center for the Humanities and Civic Engagement at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Entitled “Hawaiian in Ohio: A Celebration of Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Asian American Heritage,” the performance was also accompanied by a digital art exhibit in Cleveland Public Library’s Digital Library on the 3rd floor of the historical Main Library downtown Cleveland and an exhibit of prints in the 4th floor gallery space.

Joe Balaz and His Work

Joe Balaz

Joe Balaz was born and raised in Wahiawa on the island of O’ahu with an ancestry that encompasses Hawai’i, Slovakia, and Ireland. He has called Northeast Ohio home for almost twenty years.

In addition to writing work in American English and Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (HIP), he also creates concrete poetry which includes playful visual elements, as well as relevant and pressing commentary in society today. Electric Laulau, his album of Pidgin poetry recorded in 1998, is considered a foundational text in Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) literature. “Spoken word and amplified poetry or music poetry are dynamic avenues that enhance the communal aspect of literature in general,” Balaz has said. “It’s like a chant that reaches out to you. With the oral traditions of Pacific Island cultures, one can feel a kind of continuum with these modern art forms that harken back to an older vibe.” In July 2020, Balaz was honored with the Elliot Cades Award for Literature as an Established Writer, the most prestigious literary award in Hawai’i.

book cover

His book, Pidgin Eye, published in 2019, is a singular collection of some of the poetry that Balaz has written in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin during his long creative career in literature. Balaz has written many poems in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin, although he also writes poetry in American English as well. Pidgin Eye received very positive reviews in publications as diverse as the Honolulu Star-Advertiser newspaper, NBC News, and the academic Journal of Commonwealth Literature:

“History of Pigeon”, the opening poem, unveils contemporary English as itself a long-time mixture of languages in its vocabulary and syntax. Challenging the very premise of monolingualism and colonial sovereignty, the poem suggests there is no such thing as a pure language unmixed with other languages, or free from violence and trauma.

~ from Juniper Ellis’s “Da decolonizing real: Liberating humour in Joe Balaz’s Pidgin Eye” in The Journal of Commonwealth, October 26, 2020

Balaz’s work appeared in Whetū Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English (2003) and in journals such as Chaminade Literary Review and Hawaiʻi Review. His paper entitled “Hawaiian Islands Pidgin Visual and Textual Poetry” was published in the academic journal Pacific Arts (2022). Balaz also edited Ho‘omanoa: An Anthology of Contemporary Hawaiian Literature (1989) and was also the former editor of Ramrod — A Literary & Art Journal of Hawaiʻi (1980 to 1989). He is presently the editor 13 Miles from Cleveland, a literary, art, and music magazine available online at 13milesfromcleveland.org. The Summer 2023 issue featured works by a selection of writers, artists, and musicians who are part of the large and vibrant contemporary creative community that exists in the Pacific Islander region which includes Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia.


For additional examples of Balaz’s work available online, check out the following links:


Acknowledgments: In some cases, Balaz will perform to music created by other musicians. Thanks to musicians Peter Chamberlain, Simeon Slovacek, Peter Bombar, Tim Bombar, John Grant, Janet Mix, Richard Hamasaki and H. Doug Matsuoka for providing this music in various performance pieces. Also, thanks to Mary Ellen Derwis, for her filmmaking and video created for “The Other Side.” “The Other Side” is from the music-poetry cd Domino Buzz which was recorded in Hawai’i in 2004. The album was released in 2006 and features the poetry of Balaz, and the music of Peter Chamberlain, Simeon Slovacek, Chuck Souza, Peter Kealoha, Sam Henderson, and Greg Kekipi. Special thanks also to Cleveland musicians Mark Tapanja, Tim Tapanja, Mike Tapanja, Al Rothacker, and Robert Mozik for allowing their instrumental music to be shared with the public in “Eastside / Westside,” which is a music / poem collaboration written by Balaz in 2006. A video of this music-poem, with performance by Balaz, was filmed by Balaz and Cleveland-born Mary Ellen Derwis in a living room in Brecksville, Ohio in 2010. The Cleveland musicians were known as Fourteenth Floor, remembered by many in Cleveland for their classic album Circus, Saints, and Sinners, recorded in Lakewood, Ohio, and released in Cleveland in 1992.