New Poets of Native Nations - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555978096 ISBN 13: 9781555978099

Publisher: Graywolf Pr, 2018

Synopsis

A landmark anthology celebrating twenty-one Native poets first published in the twenty-first century

New Poets of Native Nations gathers poets of diverse ages, styles, languages, and tribal affiliations to present the extraordinary range and power of new Native poetry. Heid E. Erdrich has selected twenty-one poets whose first books were published after the year 2000 to highlight the exciting works coming up after Joy Harjo and Sherman Alexie. Collected here are poems of great breadth long narratives, political outcries, experimental works, and traditional lyrics and the result is an essential anthology of some of the best poets writing now.

Poets included are Tacey M. Atsitty, Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Laura Da', Natalie Diaz, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Eric Gansworth, Gordon Henry, Jr., Sy Hoahwah, LeAnne Howe, Layli Long Soldier, Janet McAdams, Brandy Nalani McDougall, Margaret Noodin, dg okpik, Craig Santos Perez, Tommy Pico, Cedar Sigo, M. L. Smoker, Gwen Westerman, and Karenne Wood.

About this title

About the Author

Heid E. Erdrich is the author of five collections of poetry, including Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum for Archaic Media. She is Ojibwe enrolled at Turtle Mountain, and lives and teaches in Minneapolis.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

New Poets Of Native Nations

By Heid E. Erdrich

GRAYWOLF PRESS

Copyright © 2018 Heid E. Erdrich
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-55597-809-9

Contents

Introduction Twenty-One Poets for the Twenty-First Century Heid E. Erdrich, xi, 
Tacey M. Atsitty, 3, 
Layli Long Soldier, 15, 
Tommy Pico, 29, 
Margaret Noodin, 45, 
Laura Da', 55, 
Gwen Nell Westerman, 65, 
Jennifer Elise Foerster, 75, 
Natalie Diaz, 91, 
Trevino L. Brings Plenty, 107, 
dg nanouk okpik, 121, 
Julian Talamantez Brolaski, 131, 
Sy Hoahwah, 145, 
Craig Santos Perez, 155, 
Gordon Henry, Jr., 167, 
Brandy Nalani McDougall, 181, 
M. L. Smoker, 193, 
LeAnne Howe, 203, 
Cedar Sigo, 213, 
Karenne Wood, 227, 
Amoroleck's Words, 
Eric Gansworth, 239, 
Janet McAdams, 253, 
Author Notes, 269, 
Editor's Acknowledgments, 279, 
Permissions, 281, 

CHAPTER 1

TACEY M. ATSITTY

Tacey M. Atsitty, Diné, is Tsénahabilnii (Sleep Rock People) and born for Ta'neeszahnii (Tangle People) from Cove, Arizona. She is a recipient of the Truman Capote Literary Trust Award in Creative Writing, Corson-Browning Poetry Prize, Morning Star Creative Writing Award, and Philip Freund Prize. She holds bachelor's degrees from Brigham Young University and the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA in creative writing from Cornell University.

Atsitty's first book is Rain Scald (2018).

Anasazi

How can we die when we're already
prone to leaving the table mid-meal
like Ancient Ones gone to breathe
elsewhere. Salt sits still, but pepper's gone
rolled off in a rush. We've practiced dying for
a long time: when we skip dance or town,
when we chew. We've rounded out
like dining room walls in a canyon, eaten
through by wind — Sorry we rushed off;
the food wasn't ours. Sorry the grease sits
white on our plates, and the jam that didn't set
— use it as syrup to cover every theory of us.


Nightsong

To The gorge dwellers

With no fire, you offer
nothing. Say,

a body found, fall creek
gorge. Eventual

it is, meaning to happen.
Meaning to say,

Dear fellow ______,
It is with deep

Name — Name —
Name, strung like

hair. Water strands
made old, made

white. Too close
to dark. Second tragedy

fall creek throat.
Repeated repeated loss.

Thirst-in almanac of
the gorges. Litany

of wrists. Look
down at your wrists,

down here where
the thick laps

the lips. Where you
haven't been taught:

pull yourself out of
the plunge pool

and look for fire, look
for rings shifted

to your thumb and
forefinger. There, like

vapor wrapping you
in strips. In this falling

moment, cities
sink into the depths,

drown. The earth
face carried up and

away in the current of
a whirlwind, where water

and mountains hide
in deep blue. What faces

bring: a reservoir filled,
following the night

when day fell into day,
soon followed by night

into night to night,
thrice with no moon,

thrice with no flame —
kept in the thick thick.


Downpour

I asked him down here:

where virgin belts dangle from my thighs

where my sash belt pulls the sky in, knuckles go white, and all
without a moan

where leaves turn so quickly, already red with winter
where we wait for deluge, but it never comes

not yet ripe, only vocables can embody

Down here, I can't pull out of this tune to utter

the cowardice of hand and tongue what I wanted

I can't tear myself from this heap of blankets; this rocking comfort, my
— self: the only one I allow

and our son, I leave him, like a monster, cooing in the next gorge over

* * *

I can't sing over the onrush of falling water, that pounding connect from
mouth to base

lick cloudburst, the way I want

Down here, I speak with a tongue of cedar: bark and kindle

the clouds last night, they held back

But like I said, we shouldn't chant what's not ours

he sacks himself up for me to unravel

a bag of pears. I give one to him, and it gushes with each pull of skin

* * *

And still I can't tear away from these blankets
even when he says he's ready for downpour:

I offer him my hand to guide me down the gorge

But don't play my flute for him; I don't want him to fall in
— with me, like I did. I strum him so thinly, and still he chants

I am left to cramp, my entire body over

* * *

I bring him down here to let my hair loose, then ask him to put it in a knot

my confidence is worn to warps, a bald

fringe my breath no longer shapes syllables of

his name he says rain and I go beautifully together

what it means to apologize

how I curl my hair even though my wrists ache for him

how my nails chip before the moons push on through

how I cross my legs for him as he blows at rain

his fingers wrap our silence

how I prefer the heavens to rainfall

how for him, I am all of this — as sorry as I am when I
say,

The sky is so hollow from child.


Paper Water

AFTER SB 2109

X threads us into rope, a weave of human
arms X-ed down a canyon wall. Voice

writes nights like these and calls
for complete night, without

scraps of light or dissonance or stuttered
cries. Crumble of tree limbs: X, there

we are again. This is how far we climb
for life. We'd rub out before reaching

the ground, where water cuts —
Once a man had only water to pray with.

Once life is the blur of a windmill,
each crisscross sets another arm

to bark. Cessation of the line; break
it up there. Article X: delineate marginal

arcs, say everything within windmill shot —
Whereas injury to water was writ

and concluded: how far inside earth
will they reach? Whereas for groundwater,

they steady their wrists for a slow up-stitch
across their own eyelids.


Elegy for Yucca Fruit Woman

Without me, she said. Go —
I'm going to the rock
that once had wings. My life
rolls like rock clods
down a volcanic throat, circling
the tips of big winds beneath

* * *

poised arms wing bone, surrounded
and closing, dust hinge. In upstroke, a
slow separate in landing then takeoff. To
take air, those inward whooshes as if blessing
oneself: marrow leaving the hollow

* * *

pop. She knelt with women
filling the earth: mush in tin
after tin, filled in with breaking
sun. Kneeling down, she'd flap
dough with the wood pop,
her hands whirring. The air
bubbles rising with heat ready to —
Later she'd send me to 7-2-11
clenching quarters for —

* * *

at two points: they say a man flew
with a life-feather, quill in hand,
from the top of Shiprock down
to the people, having slain
monster birds. Plumes
and all their vanes ending
in flight after bird strike

* * *

"A female eagle swooped east,"
she once told me. "It was like gold
whirring in the blue of my wind-
shield. I was in my truck, driving
and listening to Peyote songs
when it happened. I had never seen
so much dust."

* * *

When skin slats, layered
like stone then collapses—

a red grows gray. Aspen expands
to the hush

of this cedar-filled room. When
her neck grew heavy she said,

"The music helps me; press play":


Hei hei ya wena hei nei, Hei hei ya wena hei nei;
Hei hei ya wena hei nei, nei; Hei hei ya wena hei nei;
Ya na hei ya na hei o weno hei nei;
Ya na hei ya na hei o weno hwoi na hei nei yo wei.


Hole through the Rock

Nothing but slough before you rode me silver. And smooth,
until I shone. I rode in and didn't even see I was gone: the eye

of my navel, sand folds this way all the time. And rain scours
just the same. You hold all the clay. I fall to granule.

But within my whorl, you are winged: doubled and pure,
like the coupling of pebbles in storm water. These enduring

glances from wind on pane say you can see plainly the part
of me you miss. Our palms meet at the fingertips, forming a W:

double which is only half me to whole us. Where our wrists
brush smooth, clay chips curve into this sand swept hollow:

a roil to the usual clink of bone and arc in stone.

This is not about time; it's the closing
of a single us: a gentle
edging into an ellipse.

CHAPTER 2

LAYLI LONG SOLDIER

Layli Long Soldier is an Oglala Lakota poet, writer, and artist. She is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts, and she holds an MFA from Bard College. Long Soldier is a recipient of a 2015 Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry, a 2015 National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, a 2016 Whiting Award, the 2018 PEN/ Jean Stein Award, and the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry.

WHEREAS (2017) is Long Soldier's first collection of poetry.

38

Here, the sentence will be respected.

I will compose each sentence with care, by minding what the rules of
writing dictate.

For example, all sentences will begin with capital letters.

Likewise, the history of the sentence will be honored by ending each one
with appropriate punctuation such as a period or question mark, thus
bringing the idea to (momentary) completion.

You may like to know, I do not consider this a "creative piece."

I do not regard this as a poem of great imagination or a work of fiction.
Also, historical events will not be dramatized for an "interesting" read.

Therefore, I feel most responsible to the orderly sentence; conveyor of
thought.

That said, I will begin.

You may or may not have heard about the Dakota 38.

If this is the first time you've heard of it, you might wonder, "What is the
Dakota 38?"

The Dakota 38 refers to thirty-eight Dakota men who were executed by hanging,
under orders from President Abraham Lincoln.

To date, this is the largest "legal" mass execution in US history.

The hanging took place on December 26, 1862 — the day after
Christmas.

This was the same week that President Lincoln signed the
Emancipation Proclamation.

In the preceding sentence, I italicize "same week" for emphasis.

There was a movie titled Lincoln about the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was included in the film
Lincoln; the hanging of the Dakota 38 was not.

In any case, you might be asking, "Why were thirty-eight Dakota men
hung?"

As a side note, the past tense of hang is hung, but when
referring to the capital punishment of hanging, the correct past tense is
hanged.

So it's possible that you're asking, "Why were thirty-eight Dakota men
hanged?"

They were hanged for the Sioux Uprising.

I want to tell you about the Sioux Uprising, but I don't know where to begin.
I may jump around and details will not unfold in chronological order.

Keep in mind, I am not a historian.

So I will recount facts as best as I can, given limited resources and
understanding.

Before Minnesota was a state, the Minnesota region, generally speaking,
was the traditional homeland for Dakota, Anishinaabeg, and Ho-Chunk
people.

During the 1800s, when the US expanded territory, they "purchased" land
from the Dakota people as well as the other tribes.

But another way to understand that sort of "purchase" is: Dakota leaders
ceded land to the US government in exchange for money or goods, but
most importantly, the safety of their people.

Some say that Dakota leaders did not understand the terms they were entering,
or they never would have agreed.

Even others call the entire negotiation "trickery."

But to make whatever-it-was official and binding, the US government drew
up an initial treaty.

This treaty was later replaced by another (more convenient) treaty, and
then another.

I've had difficulty unraveling the terms of these treaties, given the legal
speak and congressional language.

As treaties were abrogated (broken) and new treaties were drafted, one
after another, the new treaties often referenced old defunct treaties, and it
is a muddy, switchback trail to follow.

Although I often feel lost on this trail, I know I am not alone.

However, as best as I can put the facts together, in 1851, Dakota territory
was contained to a twelve-mile by one-hundred-fifty-mile long strip along
the Minnesota River.

But just seven years later, in 1858, the northern portion was ceded (taken)
and the southern portion was (conveniently) allotted, which reduced Dakota
land to a stark ten-mile tract.

These amended and broken treaties are often referred to as the Minnesota
Treaties.

The word Minnesota comes from mni, which means
water; and sota, which means turbid.

Synonyms for turbid include muddy, unclear, cloudy, confused, and smoky.
Everything is in the language we use.

For example, a treaty is, essentially, a contract between two sovereign
nations.

The US treaties with the Dakota Nation were legal contracts that promised
money.

It could be said, this money was payment for the land the Dakota ceded;
for living within assigned boundaries (a reservation); and for relinquishing
rights to their vast hunting territory which, in turn, made Dakota
people dependent on other means to survive: money.

The previous sentence is circular, akin to so many aspects of history.

As you may have guessed by now, the money promised in the turbid trea-
ties did not make it into the hands of Dakota people.

In addition, local government traders would not offer credit to "Indians" to
purchase food or goods.

Without money, store credit, or rights to hunt beyond their ten-mile tract
of land, Dakota people began to starve.

The Dakota people were starving.

The Dakota people starved.

In the preceding sentence, the word "starved" does not need italics for
emphasis.

One should read "The Dakota people starved" as a straightforward and
plainly stated fact.

As a result — and without other options but to continue to starve
— Dakota people retaliated.

Dakota warriors organized, struck out, and killed settlers and traders.
This revolt is called the Sioux Uprising.

Eventually, the US Cavalry came to Mnisota to confront the Uprising.
More than one thousand Dakota people were sent to prison.

As already mentioned, thirty-eight Dakota men were subsequently hanged.

After the hanging, those one thousand Dakota prisoners were released.

However, as further consequence, what remained of Dakota territory in
Mnisota was dissolved (stolen).

The Dakota people had no land to return to.
This means they were exiled.

Homeless, the Dakota people of Mnisota were relocated (forced) onto
reservations in South Dakota and Nebraska.

Now, every year, a group called the Dakota 38 2 Riders conduct a
memorial horse ride from Lower Brule, South Dakota, to Mankato, Mnisota.

The Memorial Riders travel 325 miles on horseback for eighteen days,
sometimes through sub-zero blizzards.

They conclude their journey on December 26, the day of the hanging.
Memorials help focus our memory on particular people or events.

Often, memorials come in the forms of plaques, statues, or gravestones.

The memorial for the Dakota 38 is not an object inscribed with words, but
an act.

Yet, I started this piece because I was interested in writing about grasses.

So, there is one other event to include, although it's not in chronological
order and we must backtrack a little.

When the Dakota people were starving, as you may remember, government
traders would not extend store credit to "Indians."

One trader named Andrew Myrick is famous for his refusal to provide
credit to Dakota people by saying, "If they are hungry, let them eat grass."

There are variations of Myrick's words, but they are all something to that
effect.

When settlers and traders were killed during the Sioux Uprising, one of
the first to be executed by the Dakota was Andrew Myrick.

When Myrick's body was found,
his mouth was stuffed with grass.

I am inclined to call this act by the Dakota warriors a poem.

There's irony in their poem.

There was no text.

"Real" poems do not "really" require words.

I have italicized the previous sentence to indicate inner dialogue, a revealing
moment.

But, on second thought, the words "Let them eat grass" click the gears of
the poem into place.

So, we could also say, language and word choice are crucial to the poem's
work.

Things are circling back again.

Sometimes, when in a circle, if I wish to exit, I must leap.
And let the body swing.

From the platform.

Out

to the grasses

(Continues...)

Excerpted from New Poets Of Native Nations by Heid E. Erdrich. Copyright © 2018 Heid E. Erdrich. Excerpted by permission of GRAYWOLF PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Graywolf Pr
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1555978096
• ISBN 13: 9781555978099
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 284
• Editor: Erdrich Heid E.