Pono (b. 1996, ze/they) is a self- and community-taught multimedia and interdisciplinary Maker, Storyteller, Illustrator, and Culture Bearer. Ze is of several diasporic lineages. What they know: they are of Kanaka people whose land is currently annexed by the imperial forces of the united states of america. They are of Taino and Samtoy rebels and rebellions. They are of Indigenous peoples of Benin and Togo. Colonialism continues to disrupt the passage of much knowledge beyond this, except that Ze is of the Asuncions—brown, sturdy, wild-haired, hot-blooded cryptids who collect tiny things, sing, play ki ho’alu, talk story, & take turns inventing worlds. Pono is based in Bdeóta Othúŋwe, close to the shores of Wíta Tópa. Ze lives in a little blue cottage full of plants and errant paint with their wife Miriam. They are attendants to an elderly, soft creature who's supposedly a dog, with whom Pono shares a hive mind.