Skip to main content

Distributed for Tupelo Press

Native Voices

Indigenous American Poetry, Craft, and Conversations

“I write from a continuous space of erasure. Poetry was the one way that I was able to hold onto…my history, geography, and language.” — Craig Santos Perez, contributor
In this groundbreaking anthology of Indigenous poetry and prose, Native poems, stories, and essays are informed with a knowledge of both what has been lost and what is being restored. It offers a diverse collection of stories told by Indigenous writers about themselves, their histories, and their present. It is a celebration of culture and the possibilities of language.
Featuring forty-four poets, including Ishmael Hope, Bojan Louis, Ruby Murray, Simon Ortiz, Leslie Marmon Silko, Luci Tapahonso, Joy Harjo, dg okpik, Sherwin Bitsui, Heid E. Erdrich, Layli Long Soldier, and Orlando White.
Original influence essays by Diane Glancy on Lorca, Chrystos on Audre Lorde, Louise Erdrich on Elizabeth Bishop, LeAnne Howe on W. D. Snodgrass, Allison Hedge Coke on Delmore Schwartz, Suzanne Rancourt on Ai, and M. L. Smoker on Richard Hugo, among others.
And, a selection of resonant work chosen from previous generations of Native artists.
“There really is no better anthology out there that collects indigenous poets publishing from 1960 to the present.” — Dean Rader, co-editor

554 pages | 6.5 x 9 | © 2019

Biography and Letters


Tupelo Press image

View all books from Tupelo Press

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface xx
Introduction xxiv

Carter Revard 3
OSAGE, PONCA, IRISH, AND SCOTCH-IRISH

Poems:
Indians Demand Equal Time with God
People from the Stars Driving in Oklahoma
Statement on Energy Policy

Essay:
"Herbs of Healing: American Values in American Indian Literature"

Simon I. Ortiz 30
ACOMA PUEBLO

Poems:
Culture and the Universe
Survival This Way
A Story of How a Wall Stands
Our Eagerness Blooms

Essay:
from "Song/Poetry, and Language: Expression and Perception"

Diane Glancy 41
CHEROKEE

Poems:
The Bat House
Without Title
Buffalo Medicine
He Dressed Me for the Pretend Cold
Until the times of restitution - Acts 3:21

Essav and influence poem:
Federico Garcia Lorca’s "From Here"

Ernestine Hayes 48
TLINGIT

Poems:
Shapeshifters
Land otter people
The Spoken Forest

Influence poem:
With Elegant Craft: Nora Marks Dauenhauer’s "How to Make Good Baked
Salmon from the River"

Adrian C. Louis 57
LOVELOCK PAIUTE

Poems:
In Lieu of a Communion Wafer
Prairie Madness
Skinology
The Hermit’s Diary
Magpie in Margaritaville

Essay:
Of Craft, Cub Scouts, Mayonnaise, and UFOs

Chrystos 67
MENOMINEE

Poems:
Sky Falls Away
Beauti Full Soft Black Tongues
She Had to Go
Palestinians & Indians Feel
I Still Have the Bullet
The Earth Where I Live

Essay:
War Piece Craft

Influencing poem:
Audre Lorde’s "A Litany for Survival"

Linda Hogan 79
CHICKASAW

Poems:
Bones at the River
Creation
The Fingers, Writing About Myself
Lost in the Milky Way
What I Keep

Essay and influencing poems:
Poetry Is My First Language: Layli Long Soldier’s "Whereas" and Craig Santos
Perez’s "understory

Leslie Marmon Silko 91
LAGUNO PUEBLO

Poems:
Poem for Myself and Mei: Concerning Abortion
Love Poem
The Storyteller’s Escape
When Sun Came to Riverwoman

Essay:
from Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective
Influencing poem:
Excerpt from a letter to James Wright, September 12, 1979, and James Wright’s poem "Wherever Home Is"

Janice Gould 110
KOYANgK’AUWIMAIDU

Poems:
Indian Mascot, 1959
The Day of the Dead
Kim
A Poem
Poor in Spirit

Essay:
Influences

Influencing poem:
Gary Snyder’s "Riprap"

Ray A. Young Bear 119
MESKWAKI

Poems:
To See as Far as the Grandfather World
Our Bird Aegis
John Whirlwind’s Doublebeat Songs, 1956
Four Hinterland Abstractions

Essay:
"The Summer of 1969: Children of Speakthunder"

Influence poem:
James Welch’s "In My Lifetime"

Joy Harjo 136
MVSKOKE

Poems:
The Woman Hanging From the Thirteenth Floor Window
A Postcolonial Tale
Eagle Poem
Essay:
from "One Song

LeAnne Howe 149
CHOCTAW

Poems:
Gatorland
Noble Savage Learns to Tweet
The Rope Speaks
Now I Lay Me Down
Apocrypha

Essay:
Inner Conflicts

Influence poem:
W. D. Snodgrass’s "Eva Braun"

Luci Tapahonso 170
DINÉ

Poems:
Blue Horses Rush In The Motion of Songs Rising
It Has Always Been This Way
Daané é Diné

Essay:
From the Preface to Sáanii Dahataal: The Women Are Singing

Ruby Hansen Murray 179
OSAGE

Poems:
The Dark Mother
Nch’i-Wana
Rest Assured
Food Fight at Hanford, No Laughing Matter
The Little Osage Captive, Elias Cornelius, 1824

Essay:
Giving Voice to Place: Where You See Yourself

Influencing poem:
Carter Revard’s "Wazhazhe Grandmother’

Louise Erdrich 188
TURTLE MOUNTAIN OJIBWE

Poems:
Dear John Wayne
Indian Boarding School: The Runaways
Captivity
Windigo
Rez Litany

Essay:
Out of the Black Night

Influencing Poem:
Elizabeth Bishop’s "One Art"

Gordon Henry Jr. 200
WHITE EARTH OJIBWE

Poems:
When Names Escaped Us
November Becomes the Sky with Suppers for the Dead
Jazz Tune for a Hiawatha Woman

Essay:
Let us be painting painting painter singing singing singer: On the verve of verbs

Kimberly Blaeser 208
ANISHINAABE

Poems:
Captivity
Apprenticed to Justice
Goodbye to All That
Fantasies of Women
Of Fractals and Pink Flowering

Essay:
"Air is Between These Words, Fanning the Flame": Poetry and Literary Inheritance Influence boem:
Linda Hogan’s "Workday"

C. R. Resetarits 226
CHEROKEE-CREEK

Poems:
Elegy
Arroyo
Hovenweep

Essay:
Lost Tribes, Rain C. Goméz, and the Shadow Arts

Influence poem:
Rain C Goméz’s "Mapping Shadow"


Allison Adelle Hedge Coke 234
HURON, METIS, LUSO, FRENCH CANADIAN, AND MIXED
SOUTHEASTERN NATIVE

Poems:
America, I Sing You Back Taxonomy
Radio Wave Mama
Streaming

Essay:
Beyond the Ballads

Influence poem:
Delmore Schwartz’s "The Heavy Bear that Goes With Me"

Elise Paschen 259
OSAGE

Poems:
Oklahoma Home
Under the Dome
WI’-gi-e
My Mother Descends
Parents at Rest

Essay:
Straddling Two Worlds

Influence poem:
Joy Harjo’s "She Had Some Horses"

Suzanne S. Rancourt 270
ABENAKI (BEAR CLAN) / HURON
Poems:
Fabric
Maccha
The Smell of Blood

Essay:
So Glad You Asked

Influence poem:
Ai’s "Warrior"

Deborah A. Miranda 280
OHLONE-COSTANOAN ESSELEN / CHUMASH

Poems:
Juliana, 1803
Indian Cartography
Novena to Bad Indians
Erasurepoem
Tears of the Sun

Essay:
Looking for Ourselves in the Poetry of Others

Influence poem:
Wendy Rose’s’
"Excavation at Santa Barbara Mission"

Heid E. Erdrich 298
TURTLE MOUNTAIN ONBWE

Poems:
Little Souvenirs from the DNA Trading Post
National Monuments
Kennewick Man Tells All
Guidelines for the Treatment of Sacred Objects
Pre-Occupied

Essay:
Real to Me

Influencing poem:
Kimberly Blaeser’s "Rewriting Your Life"

Celia Bland 31I
CHEROKEE

Poems:
Car Crash
Cherokee Hogscape
Lost Highway

Essay:
Car Crashes, Shootings, and Ghosts Influence poem:
Natalie Díaz’s "When My Brother Was an Aztec"

Margaret Noodin 319
ANISHINAABE

Poems:
Daanisag/ Daughters
Nayendamowin Mitigwaaking / Woodland Liberty
Apenimonodan / Trust

Essay:
Like Sedimentary Stone

Influence poem:
lane Joinston Schoolcrafis "On Leaving My Children John and Jane,intie
Atlantic States, and preparing to return to the interior"

Chip Livingston 327
MVSKOKE

Poems:
Stadium Mocs
Punta Del Este Pantoum
52 Hawks

Essay:
The Influence of Repetition in Chrystos’s "Crazy Grandpa Whispers"

Esther G. Belin 335
DINÉ

Poems:
This Is What I Mean
______Child(ren) Left Behind
Public Record 1831
Ruby in Me #1
Blues-ing on the Brown Vibe

Essay:
Poem Making as Making Space

Influence poem:
Luci Tapahonso’s "That American Flag"

dg nanouk okpik 349
INUPIAQ-INUIT

Poems:
Frightening Acid Flakes Haibun
Fossil Fuel Embers Haibun
Glacial Oil World
Man and the Little People

Influence poem:
Arthur Sze’s "The Owl: Thoughts on Word Choice

Sammie Bordeaux-Seeger 355
SICANGU LAKOTA

Poems:
Blue Water
No Water
November
1900

Essay:
Finding Resonance in Roberta Hill’s "Star Quilt"

Influence poem:
Roberta Hill’s "Star Quilt"

Molly McGlennen 363
ANISHINAABE

Poems:
Three Poems for Ellia
Living the Language
Legend

Essay:
Preface to Fried Fish and Flour Biscuits

M. L. Smoker 369
ASSINIBOINE-SIOUx

Poems:
The Feed
Another Attempt at a Rescue
Letter to Richard Hugo
Mercy

Essay:
Hugo

Influence poem:
Richard Hugo’s "Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg”

Sherwin Bitsui 378
DINÉ

Poems:
Atlas
Apparition
Drought
Stepping through the drum’s vibration

Essay:
from "The Motion of Poetic Landscape: An Interview with Sherwin Bitsui" by
Bianca Viñas

Cedar Sigo 388
SUQUAMISH

Poems:
First Love
The Material Field
The Studio

Essay:
Return to Grafitti Land

Influence poem:
John Trudell’s "Rant and Roll"

Julian Talamantez Brolaski 397
MESCALERO AND LIPAN APACHE, LATIN@, EUROPEAN

Poems:
as the owl augurs in the cut
I had already shuttered an aspect of my vision

Jennifer Elise Forster 403
MVSKOKE

Poems:
From Coosa
Atlas
Leaving Tulsa

Essay:
The Spiral: Circling Closer

Influence poem:
Joy Harjo’s "Speaking Tree"

Laura Da’ 416
EASTERN SHAWNEE

Poems:
Perspective
Eve Turned Crow
Leviathan

Essay and Influence poem:
On lames Thomas Stevens’s "Tokinish"

Bojan Louis 426
DINÉ

Poems:
The Nature of Mortal Illness
If Nothing, the Land Breach

Essay:
"Between the Abyss and Here, Beauty"

Influence poem:
Lynda Hull’s "Studies from Life"

Craig Santos Perez 439
CHAMORU

Poems:
Interwoven
Ode (Ending wich a Confession) to the First Mango I Ate on Guam after Decades Away
The Pacific Written Tradition

Essay and Influence poem:
On Writing from the New Oceania and Cecilia Catherine
Taitano Perez’s "As I Turn the Pages"

Ishmael Angaluuk Hope 456
TLINGIT, IÑUPIAQ

Poems:
Canoe Launching into the Gaslit Sea
from Love Letter to the Future: A Book of the Land in Four Acts

Essay and Influence text:
"A Story of Turtle Island" told by Sequoyah Guess

Michaelsun Stonesweat Knapp 469
OHLONE (COSTANOAN-RUMSEN CARMEL BAND)

Poems:
Manwreck
At What Number Are Numbers No Good?

Essay and Influence texts:
On "At What Number Are Numbers No Good?" and Tecumseh’s Speech to the Osages

Michael Wasson 477
NIMÍIPUU

Poems:
Aposiopesis [Or, the Field Between the Living & the Dead]
I Say After-Rain, You Say Hahalxpáawisa
Self-Portrait as 1879-1934
This Dusk in a Mouth Full of Prayer
Self-Portrait as Article I [r]. [Treaty With Nez Percés, 1855): Cession of Lands to the United States

Essay and Influence poem:
I Am To Carry This History, This Body: Eduardo C. Corral’s "Our Comple-tion: Oil on Wood: Tino Rodriguez: 1999

Benjamin Naka-Hasebe Kingsley 494
ONONDAGA

Poems:
American Rust
just another horse poem
Run: 2nd Street Harrisburg PA Summertime 17

Essay:
Our Work Is Never Over

Influence poem:
Gail Tremblay’s "Indian Singing in 20th Century America"

Orlando White 501
DINÉ OF THE NAANEESHT’ÉZHI TÁBAAHÍ AND BORN FOR THE NAAKAI DINÉ’E

Poems:
Analogy
Sentence
Writ
Unwritten
Whit

Essay:
from Interview with Orlando White, by Veronica Golos

Layli Long Soldier 509
OGLALA LAKOTA

Poems:
38
Excerpts from "Whereas Statements"
Essay:
from "Layli Long Soldier: interviewed by Kaveh Akbar"

Permissions 522
Acknowledgments 526

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press