Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight: Kalehua Kim
This monthly series features poems by women of color in the early stages of their publishing careers. It is our intention to create more space at Perugia for the work of poets who are Black, Indigenous, and women of color (BIWOC). We hope using our platform to highlight this work will expand the readership of the poets we spotlight. This series aligns with Perugia’s mission to celebrate and support emerging women poets, inclusive of gender-expansive identities; featured poems will be from poets with no more than one published full-length collection. We’d love to hear from readers with suggestions for poems & poets to feature.
September 2025 Poet: Kalehua Kim
Impression
Every morning my mother painted on red lips: Wine with Everything, Fire and Ice, Really Red lips. I woke to kisses blotted all over my face, little love songs at my temple, on my forehead, lips. They seeped under my skin, but it still took time to learn her songs when I sang through my cracked lips. She could sing all night without dulling a point in her Cupid's bow, soft notes from tinted lips. My father grew tired of her voice. My brothers couldn't match her pitch, couldn't follow with their misted lips. So I carried her kisses, took her songs into my bones. I will always be marked by her - now dead - lips. I pluck a tube from her dressing table: Lehua Blossom. I gather her sheet music, where I press my newly painted lips.
Source
Mele, Trio House Press, 2025
Poet bio
Kalehua Kim is a poet living in the Pacific Northwest. Born of Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino, and Portuguese descent, her multicultural background informs much of her work. She is a 2023 winner of the James Welch Prize for Indigenous Poets and earned her MFA through the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. A Fellow with the Indigenous Nations Poets, her poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Denver Quarterly, Calyx, and ‘Ōiwi, A Native Hawaiian Journal. As a winner of the 2024 Trio House Press Editors Choice Prize, her first collection of poems, Mele, was released by Trio House in 2025.