Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (2004) is a collection of poetry that was developed into a stage play that tours internationally with an ensemble cast of Polynesian women. In the title poem, Tusiata Avia explores elements of desire and female empowerment relating to the living cultural practice of tātatau, the art of customary tattooing practiced by Samoan master artists or tufuga. Wrapping the body in images, either by inscribing images into the skin or by wrapping it in barkcloth, is a way Pacific Islanders acknowledge the body’s sacred agency. Malu is a traditional tattoo reserved for women that extends from the upper thigh to the just under the knee. Tusiata shares the meaning of this ancient art form, alongside her own reasons behind a decision to acquire one for herself.

— Maia Nuku

“Wild Dogs Under My Skirt” by Tusiata Avia

I want to tattoo my legs.
Not blue or green
but black.

I want to sit opposite the tufuga
and know he means me pain.
I want him to bring out his chisel
and his hammer
and strike my thighs
the whole circumference of them
like walking right round the world
like paddling across the whole Pacific
in a log
knowing that once you’ve pushed off
loaded the dogs on board
there’s no looking back now, Bingo.

I want my legs as sharp as dogs’ teeth
wild dogs
wild Samoan dogs
the mangy kind that bite strangers.

I want my legs like octopus
black octopus
that catch rats and eat them.

I even want my legs like centipedes
the black ones
that sting and swell for weeks.

And when it’s done
I want the tufuga
to sit back and know they’re not his
they never were

I want to frighten my lovers
let them sit across from me
and whistle through their teeth.

Tusiata Avia

Poet, Performer

Tusiata Donna Avia is a poet, performer, and children’s book writer of Samoan descent, born and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand. Avia's first collection of poetry, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (Victoria University Press, 2004), examines what it is to be a Samoan woman, painting a deeply personal view of Pacific Island life and its many collisions with life in New Zealand. Tusiata adapted Wild Dogs Under My Skirt as a theatre show, which has travelled New Zealand and the world, from Moscow to Morocco, including a season Off Broadway in 2020. In 2021, Avia's collection The Savage Colonizer Book (Victoria University Press, 2020) won the Peter and Mary Briggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Her stage adaptation of the book, The Savage Colonizer Show, premiered in 2023. In the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours, Avia was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to poetry and the arts; the same year she was made an Arts Foundation Laureate.