Colonize Me

by Benjamïn Naka-Hasebe Kingsley

Overview

Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley’s debut collection explores the experience of living as a Native American in today’s America. From Nippon refugee who America caged. From Onondaga son who America imprisoned, who they couldn’t board into whiteness. From Rust Belt trailers. From two wheelbarrow factory workers. From PA to LA to MIA to out here in West Baltimore. From counting every penny to carving the love of poems. From unheard prayers & these answered dreams. We are here. I am here. I am alive. Colonize me.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781947817029
Publisher:	Saturnalia Books
Publication date:	03/15/2019
Edition description:	None
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley is the recipient of a Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center fellowship as well as scholarships from Tin House, Sewanee, & VONA. He belongs to the Onondaga Nation of Indigenous Americans in New York. In 2017, his work was published in Best New Poets 2017 (ed. Natalie Diaz), the Iowa Review, Narrative, Ninth Letter, PANK, PEN America, the Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, and Tin House, among others.

Table of Contents

Our Broke-Ass Ladder of Opportunity or The Block Boy Anthem 1

What I Uncovered 9

Of What America: How to Assemble a (1) Native (2) Nippon (3) Cubana Body in (4) Appalachia 13

The Lion The Witch & My Brother Timiko 16

Run: 2nd Street Harrisburg PA Summertime '17 18

I Can't Close My Eyes Without Seeing Jason Pero's Body 20

Split the Lark & You Will Find the Music 22

How to Break a Horse for Riding 24

More Precious Than Pizza 26

Tesso The Iron Rat, God of Broken Promises 31

$19.42 33

$19.43 34

$19.44 35

Insecticide 36

"Bonfire-flies," 38

Just another horse poem 40

Ode to the Three Herniated Disks in My Back 42

Pass the Rock 43

Doodle of a Yankee Dandy Family 45

"Onirche." 46

Itsy-Bitsy 49

Sons of Cain 55

Annuli 57

7:34 A.M.'s Basement: Wabash Avenue 58

Humanity in the Corpse of a Whale: When We're Done Eating / Each Other / Is All That Will Be / Left 59

Truth or Dare 60

The Whine of a Father 61

180 Pope Lick Road, Somewhere Kentucky 62

Ode to My Once & Future Alcoholism 63

Irish Spring 65

Diptych 66

Lungs Full of Oil 69

Sehiàrak: Remember It 71

Bare Neck of the Woods 72

Any How's Course 73

Between Porch Boughs a Real Hasgaragéchte and His Onondaga Son 75

Count me. Number me. The First shall be 76

When My Brother Calls and Tells Me How Little Insurance Will Cover, Yes, Cancer 78

Living with Grandpa, 1995-1996 79

The Weight of Morning 81

Reasons to Cry When the Landlord Evicts You 82

Just another night sky poem 83

Passing Through a Mechanicsburg Highway on Our Way to The Pediatrician 89

How to Love a Televangelist 90

Just another fruit fly poem 91

'Ohigiwe 92

Waiting to Get into the Lil Peep Concert at House of Blues: San Diego, October 9th 2017 93

Ode to My Stretchmarks 95

If Love is Red, then: For Want-of Love or Wow!-Do That Thing You Do to My Heart 97