Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry

by Joy Harjo (Editor), Carla D. Hayden (Foreword by), The Library of Congress (With)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

It feels like, to us, that the world is opening its mind up to diverse voices. As you know, we all “already knew.” And now we can rejoice in the catching up. Joy Harjo puts her life’s Poet Laureate project of creating a digital database of Native poets into our hands. Add this title to your library along with Kevin Young's African American Poetry and YOUR world view will open tenfold. We’re living in such new days. Enjoy the expanse.

A powerful, moving anthology that celebrates the breadth of Native poets writing today.

Joy Harjo, the first Native poet to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, has championed the voices of Native peoples past and present. Her signature laureate project gathers the work of contemporary Native poets into a national, fully digital map of story, sound, and space, celebrating their vital and unequivocal contributions to American poetry.

This companion anthology features each poem and poet from the project—including Natalie Diaz, Ray Young Bear, Craig Santos Perez, Sherwin Bitsui, and Layli Long Soldier, among others—to offer readers a chance to hold the wealth of poems in their hands. The chosen poems reflect on the theme of place and displacement and circle the touchpoints of visibility, persistence, resistance, and acknowledgment. Each poem showcases, as Joy Harjo writes in her stirring introduction, “that heritage is a living thing, and there can be no heritage without land and the relationships that outline our kinship.” In this country, poetry is rooted in the more than five hundred living indigenous nations. Living Nations, Living Words is a representative offering.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393867923
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/04/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	40 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Joy Harjo is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She is the author of nine poetry collections and two memoirs, most recently Poet Warrior. The recipient of the 2023 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, and the 2017 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, she lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Table of Contents

Foreword Caria D. Hayden xi

Introduction Joy Harjo xiii

Becoming/East

Daybreak Jake Skeets 3

B 'o E-a:g mas 'ab Him g Ju:ki/It is Going to Rain Ofelia Zepeda 6

Maoli Imaikalani Kalahele 9

Heritage, X Elise Paschen 11

Off-Island CHamorus Craig Santos Perez 14

Welcoming Home Living Beings Suzan Shown Harjo 17

Wichihaka/The One I Live With Ray Young Bear 21

Indigenous Physics: The Element Colonizatium Deborah A. Miranda 24

Coquille Elizabeth Woody 31

Baby Out of Cut-Open Woman Heather Cahoon 34

Notes from Coosa Jennifer Elise Foerster 37

1918 Union Valley Road Oklahoma Leanne Howe 39

The Rhetorical Feminine Laura Da' 47

Current, I Lehua M. Taitano 50

These Rivers Remember Roberta Hill 62

Anchorage, 1989 Cathy Tagnak Rexford 65

Exile of Memory Joy Harjo 71

Center/North-South

River People-The Lost Watch Gordon Henry Jr. 81

Old Humptulips Duane Niatum 88

Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Indian Anita Endrezze 90

I gotta be Indian tomorrow Nila Northsun 95

This Island on which I Love You Brandy Nalani McDougall 98

Tiimiaq, something carried, Carrie Ayagaduk Ojanen 102

Palominos Near Tuba City Denise Sweet 106

Advice to Myself Louise Erdrich 108

Peacemaking Heid E. Erdrich 111

Thought Henry Real Bird 115

Hell's Acre Sy Hoahwah 117

Rookeries Joan Naviyuk Kane 124

The Book of the Missing, Murdered and Indigenous-Chapter 1 M. L. Smoker 127

Like any good indian woman Tanaya Winder 130

Poem on Disappearance Kimberly Blaeser 133

Na Wai Ea, The Freed Waters Mahealani Perez-Wendt 136

Departure/West

This River Kim Shuck 157

Trudell Alex Jacobs 159

Transplant: After Georgia O'Keeffe's Pelvis IV, 1944 B: William Bearhart 162

Resilience Marcie Rendon 165

In the Field Joe Dale Tate Nevaquaya 168

Shapeshifters Banned, Censored, or Otherwise Shit-Listed, aka Chosen Family Poem No'u Revilla 175

Antiquing with Indians Tiffany Midge 178

Angry Red Planet Eric Gansworth 181

From Dissolve Sherwin Bitsui 186

What did you learn here? (Old Man House, Suquamish) Cedar Sigo 190

Within Dinétah the People's Spirit Remains Strong Laura Tohe 193

Resolution 2 Layli Long Soldier 200

Ilííngo Naalyéhé: Goods of Value Luci Tapahonso 203

Postcolonial Love Poem Natalie Diaz 208

Acknowledgments 211

Credits 213

Index 219