By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Lee Tonouchi wanted to see what would happen if poetry was funny.

He asked the students in his creative writing class at Kapi'olani Community College to come up with "stand-up poetry."

The results were so engaging, he had them published in a chapbook, "Buss Laugh." The poems are so 'ono that you can't wait to show your friends. A sampling, with apologies for messing up the line breaks:

Why Sista Couldn't Fly Continental

My flight leaves in 20 minutes
why won't you let me through?
What do you mean I'm not
on your Boarding List?
But I gotta catch my flight.
I know my driver's license
doesn't have my Hawaiian name.
I filled out the ticket form
with my Hawaiian name
because that's who I am.
Everyone calls me
by my Hawaiian name.
Try ask my kumu.

— Diane Almadova

THEY SAY YOU BETTER WATCH OUT

They say you better watch out
I have the power to super-size myself and grow eight feet tall, four feet wide and triple my weight.
Look at me wrong and I'll stomp all over you.
They say you better watch out.
I have the power to untie
my wicked ponytail and unleash my afro of destruction that will strangle you no matter where you hide.

They say you better watch out.
I have the power to scale the tallest coconut trees in the world and husk those coconuts with my bare teeth, so imagine
what I could do to your head.
They say you better watch out.
I have the power to call
my immediate
and extended
super-family
from our headquarters
in the housing.

With a loud ChEeEEee Hu!!
they'll rush by my side to cover my back, and jump on yours.

They say you better watch out.
They say I'm dangerous.
That's what they say.

I say

I am just a Samoan who's going to school
and hopefully one day
I'll have the power to erase these stereotypes.

— Junior Mika

•	Poetry reading 7 p.m. Sept. 6 Kumu Kahua Theatre (corner of Merchant and Bethel) Free.