tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77884672695633274512024-03-18T13:58:05.014-07:00River, Blood, And Corn Literary JournalRiver, Blood, And Corn Literary JournalUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-25501472487989112652024-03-18T13:57:00.000-07:002024-03-18T13:57:33.574-07:00River, Blood, And Corn: A Community of Voices<span style="font-family: georgia;">At <i>River, Blood, And Corn</i>, we are promoting community and strengthening cultures with storytelling, poetry and prose. Established in 2010 by Native writers, our starting point and our goal, is to honor the work and lifeways of Lee Francis III, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, to ensure the voices of Native writers and storytellers are heard throughout the world. A variety of writers, backgrounds, communities and viewpoints are presented. Included in our themes are the Elders whose lives informed, instructed, shaped and changed ours. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">While our primary focus is Indigenous writers, we have woven writers and artists from a variety of ethnicities and communities into our pages. Perhaps people of many ethnicities, including recent immigrants from throughout the Americas as well as other parts of the world will find something in this collection that will speak to them with respect to issues of race, identity, culture, community, and representation. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thank you to our readers. We are honored and grateful to each one of you.
</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-42732328326753837862024-02-01T05:00:00.000-08:002024-03-08T14:50:50.527-08:00Pick a Garnet to Sleep In<span style="font-family: georgia;">by Kim Shuck</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">We are hunting the graveyards and </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Practicing fly-casting off of the roof at 4am </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">It must be summer </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I paint the symbols on my feet </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Study the evolution of bats and </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">21st century poetry of the 600 block of Chenery </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh child </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I braid you into my hair most days </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">And I’m the only one who can read you there </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">But then </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">We are descended from the symbolic dead and </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’m becoming the old woman out of those stories </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If not as quickly as I’d hoped </span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div>Copyright © 2024 Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.<span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Kim Shuck loves fiddling with words and puzzles and stones. Shuck served as the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco and is still recovering. Her latest book is <i>Pick a Garnet to Sleep In.</i></span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcZi0K4QXVRtAS4RVZECXyFNegt19m-Xa0Zn5_wB506cobgCUx5uwDsMi07vvLq6lzd0EAHUKr-NTL4IZXng_hSyO9SHM-iM9CxFmLx5adioXdlocEPh5YrwuiLu1KLcPL4PT90V3iFKVqh4k_A8Z6DKSK4Hrf8XFAz-3TrFJUNAR5a0mZpqbp9g6BAAo/s1366/0.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="910" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcZi0K4QXVRtAS4RVZECXyFNegt19m-Xa0Zn5_wB506cobgCUx5uwDsMi07vvLq6lzd0EAHUKr-NTL4IZXng_hSyO9SHM-iM9CxFmLx5adioXdlocEPh5YrwuiLu1KLcPL4PT90V3iFKVqh4k_A8Z6DKSK4Hrf8XFAz-3TrFJUNAR5a0mZpqbp9g6BAAo/s320/0.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><i><br /></i></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-7736951099481820842024-01-15T10:25:00.000-08:002024-01-15T10:25:46.239-08:00Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4__CfhAXw0ygloYsO8UAb1zuBDXynwCNiEOPrJc75bHLgEA4ZrGI3Uv3566CHRpW5_la9aA4cRUWQlkcFKfFr7QhP_ao5xsessf7TBFdIO78xhY8gorD2znBgrfU4KR1jTK1O9NVgJY9pS6T50z5N7YLPY27a4JZVX2dq1qUWC56I_oHeTQM6NGAXnA/s319/917oGqXzHXL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="213" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4__CfhAXw0ygloYsO8UAb1zuBDXynwCNiEOPrJc75bHLgEA4ZrGI3Uv3566CHRpW5_la9aA4cRUWQlkcFKfFr7QhP_ao5xsessf7TBFdIO78xhY8gorD2znBgrfU4KR1jTK1O9NVgJY9pS6T50z5N7YLPY27a4JZVX2dq1qUWC56I_oHeTQM6NGAXnA/w214-h320/917oGqXzHXL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" width="214" /></a><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235008/" style="font-family: georgia;"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235008/" style="font-family: georgia;"></a></div><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235008/">University of Nebraska Press</a> </div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Edited by Diane Glancy and Linda Rodriguez </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><u><a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235008/">Table of Contents and Contributors</a></u></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Unpapered </b>is a collection of personal narratives by Indigenous writers exploring the meaning and limits of Native American identity beyond its legal margins. Native heritage is neither simple nor always clearly documented, and citizenship is a legal and political matter of sovereign nations determined by such criteria as blood quantum, tribal rolls, or community involvement. Those who claim a Native cultural identity often have family stories of tenuous ties dating back several generations. Given that tribal enrollment was part of a string of government programs and agreements calculated to quantify and dismiss Native populations, many writers who identify culturally and are recognized as Native Americans do not hold tribal citizenship. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Unpapered</i> charts how current exclusionary tactics began as a response to “pretendians”—non-indigenous people assuming a Native identity for job benefits—and have expanded to an intense patrolling of identity that divides Native communities and has resulted in attacks on peoples’ professional, spiritual, emotional, and physical states. An essential addition to Native discourse, <i>Unpapered</i> shows how social and political ideologies have created barriers for Native people truthfully claiming identities while simultaneously upholding stereotypes.
</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-1996186353125061462024-01-05T14:29:00.000-08:002024-03-08T14:52:59.110-08:00Yugtarvik: A Tʌndrə’d Glimp<span style="font-family: georgia;">by Alice Rose Crow ~ Maar’aq </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Alice Rose Crow ~ Maar’aq is among the kass’ayagat of the Kusquqvaq diaspora. She is an independent maker based in Anchorage, Alaska. For the Covid-19-year of 2021, the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center invited Alice to curate a series of creative interpretations to augment ongoing efforts to examine archived collections. A mutual and consolatory goal is to bring attention and reflection to little known and overlooked elements living within the Anchorage Yugtarvik.3 An inclination is to keep stepping toward broadened and deepened groundedness, mutual acknowledgment, contemplation, engagement, understanding, deep dialogue, and sharing among First Alaskans, relatives, migrants, expats, and allanret4 across generations, languages, and amid evolving cultures, technologies, and world views. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Her mixed form 2021 collection commissioned by the Anchorage Museum,Yugtarvik: A Tʌndrə’d Glimp, is available via the yugtarvik’s website at <a href="https://www.anchoragemuseum.org/major-projects/projects/chatter-marks/#journal">https://www.anchoragemuseum.org/major-projects/projects/chatter-marks/#journal</a> (scroll down to Journal Issues). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yugtarvik: A Tʌndrə’d Glimp is also available for direct digital download: </span></div><div><a href="https://view.flipdocs.com/?ID=10017700_675590"><span style="font-family: georgia;">https://view.flipdocs.com/?ID=10017700_675590</span></a><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-83231461869414365052023-03-03T08:58:00.001-08:002023-03-03T08:58:47.275-08:00César Love Poetry<span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Four Corners </b></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b> </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">you share with me a picture of your sunset </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I would give one back to you </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">But my balcony faces east</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">instead, I offer you </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A midnight </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">dawn</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">And noon</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">three corners of the sky </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">with your sunset, they are four </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">one diamond of the night and day </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Orange</b> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the grocery store aisle </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">one belly button orange with a scar </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">others pristine, unblemished </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">others soon to be sold</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Between perfect sisters </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">one unbidden sphere </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">branded by two discolored inches </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">not to be held </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">not to be tasted</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A globe passed over </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">oceans never plunged </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">forests never inhaled </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">landscapes never painted</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A world unfathomed </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">with a navel and a canyon scar </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">is the canyon east or west?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">north or south? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">perhaps along her belly </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">or across a breast</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">maybe against her cheek. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Moonlight at Noon </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Moon, My Shadow, and I make Three. – Li Po </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i> </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I would bake on this planet </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If not for the Moon I invited </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">She agreed to let me keep her </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tucked beneath my blouse </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Her cool face against my belly </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I lounge in her quiet </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I swim in her well </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I bloom in her sanity </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Moon brought me a friend </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">One who used to follow me </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">She mimicked my every movement </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">At first she flattered me </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then she mocked me </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Finally, she ran away </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I screamed at her, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Come back here! </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I tried to put a leash on her </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">But she was too smart </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I threw a plum at her </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Of course, she thew one back </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">We did this for months </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then the Moon told me her name </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>The Poet’s Tent </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">North or South, she travels </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Always with her tent. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">On chosen ground, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">She slides its rods into the earth.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">She places cloth on its frame. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A cloth she imagined </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Something like a Mexican rebozo </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Something like an Amish quilt </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A cloth that exchanges colors </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">That switches latticework </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cloth that vibrates to the heartbeat of deer </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cloth that answers the whispers of trees</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The poet smooths the floor </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">She unrolls her carpet </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Psychic knots detach from its tendrils: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">abandoned theories </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">dropped desires </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">jettisoned memories. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">They pulse on her floor. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Soon to transform </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Soon to become </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">feral opals </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">protean metals </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">iris crystals. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">She prepares the door </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Butterflies of every stripe arrive </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">© César Love. All rights reserved. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cesar Love is a Latino poet influenced by the Asian masters. A resident of San Francisco’s Mission District, he is also an editor of the <i>Haight Ashbury Literary Journal.</i> He is the author of <i>Birthright</i> and <i>While Bees Sleep</i>.
<a href="http://cesarlovepoetry.yolasite.com">cesarlovepoetry.yolasite.com
</a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-34147390900729776112023-02-01T01:00:00.001-08:002023-02-01T01:00:00.169-08:00For Q<span style="font-family: georgia;">by Kim Shuck </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pull on a different mountain range </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">One leg at a time </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">You time travel in poem </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">He told me </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've seen you do it </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">We went relic spotting </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">More than once </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Through the line up of the '53 Dodgers </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Before his heart was broken </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Before his heart was broken </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Memories never sit as neatly in a prong setting </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a heart solitaire </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Memories never sit as neatly </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Kim Shuck is the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco Emerita. Shuck is solo author of 9 books, co-authored one, edited another ten and has contributed to a vast array of anthologies, journals, curriculum guides, tours, and protests. <a href="http://www.kimshuck.com">www.kimshuck.com</a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-85725172489577748872022-06-13T13:35:00.000-07:002024-03-08T14:53:27.408-08:00To my bystanders<span style="font-family: georgia;">by Deborah Jang </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><b>People stand by during attack of elderly Asian woman – Associated Press </b></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><b> </b></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you catch a whiff of lilac </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">on that warm summer eve </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">while we gathered at the bus stop, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">each wandering our mind?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Out the corner of your eye </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">did you flinch, did you see him </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">rushing twilight, pushing rudely in?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a flash of recognition, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">did your stomach tell your throat </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">what was going down?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you see my toes curl fetal </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">while I lay sideways </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">on the concrete stunned?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you freeze in fear and horror? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you look the other way? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you reach down for your phone </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">or was it already in your hand?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Were you scared to intervene? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did your silence cheer him on?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Was it you who kneeled down </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and whispered something kind </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I didn’t understand?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did you see my bruised face on TV? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did they say my name? </span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did they even try? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright © Deborah Jang. All rights reserved. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Deborah Jang’s creative practices include assemblage sculpture and poetry, based out of Denver, Colorado and Oceanside, California. Her debut poetry collection is titled <i>Float True</i> (Shanti Arts, 2020). Her new chapbook is <a href="https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/last-will-and-best-guesses-by-deborah-jang/"><i>Last Will and Best Guesses</i> (Finishing Line Press, 2022).</a> </span><a href="http://deborahjang.com" style="font-family: georgia;">deborahjang.com</a></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-15217306514501965182022-06-12T01:00:00.003-07:002024-03-08T14:53:40.295-08:00LAST WILL AND BEST GUESSES by Deborah Jang<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5yNbQ-spArzi1umhRzu5SzadRK0hPzDWkiL7vARsi1xfLiXWOoCzwKwwR1aH8VztZJ35WYVpn8g9BtVScBbVfyiowgACDpAEqgUAWIklU6HXN0aFVfsDxf6oFC_nKPka1NQeyqnLkOzD84GqjkUWcah-ITxXxepjwKXSW5mpsw3n_x9Ln1w3BpNqK/s1024/jang-deobrah-web-r-1024x1024.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5yNbQ-spArzi1umhRzu5SzadRK0hPzDWkiL7vARsi1xfLiXWOoCzwKwwR1aH8VztZJ35WYVpn8g9BtVScBbVfyiowgACDpAEqgUAWIklU6HXN0aFVfsDxf6oFC_nKPka1NQeyqnLkOzD84GqjkUWcah-ITxXxepjwKXSW5mpsw3n_x9Ln1w3BpNqK/w200-h200/jang-deobrah-web-r-1024x1024.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Deborah Jang knows the terrain of the human heart. <i>In Last Will and Best Guesses </i>she offers an unflinching meditation on mortality and mystery. Jang taps into our shared experiences from the pandemic to racial reckonings, the environmental crises, the plights of refugees. She writes candidly about the workings of her mind, which are the unspeakable workings of ours too. She muses on connections and consciousness that alter and deepen through recent and ongoing trauma and settles into grace. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is a rich, relatable book to pull out again and again." </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">–Terra Trevor is a contributor to 15 books including, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Take A Stand: Art Against Hate.</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Deborah Jang writes through a raging global pandemic, when a “planet [is] spinning off its axis,” gathering strength to face its uncertainties and attendant anti-Asian violence and sentiment. This is a reserve, for herself, and future generations, and I am nourished by her work." </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">–Diana Khoi Nguyen is a poet and multi-media artist whose book, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Ghost Of</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, was a 2018 finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Mind bent, nose blown, fingers crossed./Head bowed, going home.”
Deborah Jang writes to the rhythm of life while examining death and all its intricacies. This chapbook is an exhale and a deep breath." </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">–Vogue M. Robinson is the author of </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Vogue 3:16</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (2014) and served as Poet Laureate (2017-2019) for Clark County, Nevada.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/last-will-and-best-guesses-by-deborah-jang/"><i>Last Will and Best Guesses </i>by Deborah Jang, Finishing Line Press</a></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-17887604535138644652022-02-01T01:30:00.001-08:002022-06-12T14:43:37.048-07:00Community<span style="font-family: georgia;">by Kim Shuck </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Grandma lived with this peppernut </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sapling and tree </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">They drank the same water </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I know that the creek is here </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Under ground </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Under thought </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Near the lilac </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Someone’s relic of a different life </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Someone’s idea </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Carried from somewhere else </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">On a quiet day </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">When there has been rain </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rest your cheek on the trunk and hear/feel </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Water </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Running in cracked pipes </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Grandma </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The tree </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The elderberry </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The salamander </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The sense of humor </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The fog </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Each water particle </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rhymes with the life here </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Whispers kinship </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">To the cracked and layered </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rocks on this </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hill </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright © Kim Shuck. All rights reserved. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Kim Shuck is the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco Emerita. Shuck is solo author of eight books and one that is on the way. She has edited or co-edited ten volumes of poetry. She contributed essays to the recently released <i>de Young 125</i>, a collection of writing about and photographs of pieces in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Her most recent collection of poems is <i>Exile Heart </i>from That Painted Horse Press. <a href="http://www.kimshuck.com">www.kimshuck.com</a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-44095010923907406972022-01-07T13:12:00.002-08:002024-03-08T14:54:01.987-08:00Assassination Nation<span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>On the anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1968 </i></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i> </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">by Robert Bensen </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Whoever we might have been, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">whatever grief or fury we might have shared </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">were lost when the mighty arm </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">that God and the weight room gave him </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">brought down, I believe </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">a set of knuckles to open my skull </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">to the complicity of my complexion </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and turn us, like the twilight, black and white. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A half-hour later: dizziness, nausea, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">a swarm of psychedelic lights. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The brain trauma specialist </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">asked </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">if I always sweat like this. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> —Yes, I said, yes, yes, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I always sweat like this. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Police stacked the table with album after album of mug shots, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">thumbnails of beautiful black males, growing older, somewhere, maybe. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe my main mugger-man in there, or the brothers who shot up the neighborhood </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">night after night I lay sweating bullets on the floor, that summer the night </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">one of their grandmothers took a slug through her picture window into her heart. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">None of those faces belonged above the arm </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can still see silhouetted against the cool dusk of April 4, 1968, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">before it descended like the wrath of Jehovah </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">who smote the hard, hard hearts of the children </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">all the harder because they were his children. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">—Officer, I said, I never saw the man’s face. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cop thinks —This guy’s a waste. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">But I had seen the heraldry of race, an arm raised, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and locked in the fist, a club, a mace— </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">trapped in this row after row, page after page </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">of sullen faces. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Many frames, one rage. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I wonder: could he pick out of a college yearbook, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">or a line-up of my entire despiséd race, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">me, whose head got in the way of his fist? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Did this startled face serve in place of him </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">who cocked the hammer and aimed the rifle </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and pulled the trigger that fired the bullet </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">that flew through Memphis </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">that lovely April afternoon, the bullet </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">that has been flying for half a century, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">bullet flying still— </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">would this one do, who did nothing to stop it, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">nothing whatever to stop it, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">this one who’ll never undo the nothing he did </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">with the nothing he wouldn’t do, if he could. </span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">First published in <i>Piltdown Review</i>. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright © Robert Bensen. All rights reserved. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Robert Bensen is a poet, essayist, teacher, editor, and publisher in Upstate New York. Most recent among six collections of poetry are <i><b>Before</b></i> and <b><i>Orenoque, Wetumka & Other Poems</i></b> (Bright Hill Press). Poetry and literary essays have appeared in <i>AGNI, Akwe:kon, Antioch Review, Berfrois, Callaloo, The Caribbean Writer, Jamaica Journal, La presa, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Wales,</i> and elsewhere. He has edited anthologies of Native American and Caribbean literature, and authored a bibliographic study, <i>American Indian and Aboriginal Canadian Childhood Studies,</i> at Oxford University Press online. His writing has won fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Harvard University, the State of New York, Illinois Arts Council, the Robert Penn Warren Award, and others. From 1978 to 2017, he was Professor of English and Director of Writing at Hartwick College (Oneonta NY). He also taught at Parkland College and SUNY Oneonta, and conducted community workshops, including the Red Herring Workshop (Urbana IL) and the Seeing Things Poetry Workshop at Bright Hill Press and Literary Center (Treadwell NY). He is the founding editor of two literary presses, the Red Herring Press and Woodland Arts Editions. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="http://robertbensen.com">robertbensen.com</a></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-65583770322485901622021-03-03T17:00:00.017-08:002024-03-08T15:40:27.696-08:00Race, Ethnicity and My Face<span style="font-family: georgia;">by Terra Trevor
</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR8oWwp6bp2ZJmHLc1YgsT4WXG9M3Pr0dEEtxz8d49Tiq6m5olP5L9__Sl1eLmdaFNJoD6b0tODo9Dm6iSQMsj0u7w_p8rXxxh39BIj3m2ovKlC6jAw8-9OZK1knOcoZ6FlDVxtOibAX8X/s1000/safe_image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="1000" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR8oWwp6bp2ZJmHLc1YgsT4WXG9M3Pr0dEEtxz8d49Tiq6m5olP5L9__Sl1eLmdaFNJoD6b0tODo9Dm6iSQMsj0u7w_p8rXxxh39BIj3m2ovKlC6jAw8-9OZK1knOcoZ6FlDVxtOibAX8X/w400-h209/safe_image.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a woman of Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, German descent, I came of age understanding that I'm not totally Native nor am I totally white. I'm a border woman dwelling between the boundaries. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have light skin, light enough that some people think I’m a white person. My dad, a Native man, and my mother, a white woman, had me when they were teenagers in 1953. We lived in Compton, a mixed-race community in Los Angeles. The family next door was Bolivian and they loved me like a daughter. My best friend was Japanese and Mexican. Still, when I was 10 years-old, my dad sat me down to have “the talk” with me about race. He told me about how to navigate the streets, about how to stay safe. He also wanted to make sure I understood that in order to be accepted by certain white people it mattered who your friends were. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">By that point, however, I already knew. <span></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I had discovered that when I went to play at the houses of my white friends after school I needed to be aware of how I was holding myself at all times. I learned to stay alert and watch for clues: sometimes there might be an older brother who pulled his eyes in an upward slant and said something mean about Chinese people; or a father that casually spouted racial slurs at people of color. When this happened, I knew I had to make an excuse to go home and I’d never go back. Sometimes I’d make up stories when asked about my darker skinned, mixed-race family in order to protect them. But if the mothers of my white friends didn’t feel satisfied with my answers, I wouldn’t be allowed to stay at their houses for long. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Things would be different when I went over to the houses of my friends of color. Their mothers would always take me in without hesitation. And if there was a grandmother at home who spoke English with an accent, or didn’t speak English at all I could usually be certain they wouldn’t ask me if my daddy had a job. In their homes, I felt safe. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a child I had things all figured out. But when I reached my late teens and early twenties it became more complicated. <span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hanging out with my friends of color meant witnessing them get treated poorly and face multiple instances of discrimination by white people. Being out with my white friends, however, meant that we could expect to be given preferential treatment no matter where we went. When I began dating and went out with Native boys or other boys of color in my community, I was considered “white trash” by white America. I could even expect to have a white man point to my date and ask me what I thought I was doing being with the likes of someone like him. But when I dated the first guy that was white, I was allowed to be white by association and had access to the privileges of white America because of that. In stores or restaurants, we were always served or seated first, before people of color. When we acted up or got into mischief in public, it was laughed off as opposed to being taken seriously with the assumption that we were up to no good like it had been for other teens of color. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">My early adulthood was charged with decisions to make: Should I mention my Native identity? Should I let white people I don’t know well and may not ever want to become close friends with, assume I’m white? Keep my racial identity private from employers and others who would discriminate against me if they knew I’m a mixed-blood Native American woman? With dark skinned family members and dark skin friends? With strong ties to Native America and rooted within a community of color? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then, at age twenty-three, I suddenly found myself employed full-time in a company that was predominantly white. So white, that my intuition told me if my boss had known I was anything other than white, I would have probably not been hired. My white co-workers seemed to only accept people of color who adhered to white social norms and didn’t challenge their biases. They could not accept how vastly different the culture values, thought processes, and social norms of ethnic people were from white America. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I wear the face of a woman with light skin privilege. While keenly aware of the advantage it has given me over my friends and family who are not able to pass, I always make the decision to disclose my Native identity. I never try to pass. Passing would mean turning my back on my Native family, friends and community. Following my experiences working in a predominantly-white company at 23, I began to make sure that at each interview I had for a new job, I’d take a “racial temperature check” to ensure that people of color who looked like my friends and family were always welcomed. And I’d proudly list all the positions I’ve held within American Indian and Asian-American organizations on my resume. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later on in my life, I married a man who was white and we had a daughter together, before adopting two Korean children. Two of our kids had apparent ethnic features and their black hair and darker skin often caused people to mistakenly assume they were Native American. I knew that blending into white society would never be an option for them. So it was always a toss on whether they would be able to ride on the wings of my white privilege, or be subject to the racism that ruled America when they were out on their own. In turn, I did my best to connect them with their Korean roots by becoming deeply involved with the Korean community in our town. For thirty years, my heart and soul was shaped by my connection to this community for which I am grateful to be a part of. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Now, in my 70s, my gray hair and wrinkled face reveal the many years I have lived. Yet what has not changed is what most cannot see: I am still a border woman. Borders are set up to define or to separate, but I am neither part white, nor part Native. My blood is a mix between two worlds, Native and white merging together to form a third: a woman dwelling between the boundaries. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A border woman—that is me.</span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">First published in <i>Santa Clara Review, vol 108 / issue 01</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright © Terra Trevor. All rights reserved.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Terra Trevor is an essayist and the author of </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">We Who Walk the Seven Ways: A Memoir</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (University of Nebraska Press). She is a contributor to fifteen books in Native Studies, Native Literature, nonfiction and memoir. Her essays have appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals. Of mixed descent, including Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca and German, her stories are steeped in themes of place and belonging, and are shaped and infused by her identity as a mixed-blood and her connection to the landscape. She is the founding editor of <i>River, Blood and Corn. </i><a href="https://terratrevor.wordpress.com">terratrevor.com</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-49582626544679367902021-03-01T10:04:00.001-08:002024-03-08T14:54:48.256-08:00Take a Stand: Art Against Hate<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">A Raven Chronicles Anthology</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VOv039MpfRjxEgsppYkw67d6ebAl6aSwUQYt77SY0nGmNAsJBHDKezOSA5QEcQn0lss60IHscuWCJaQupkaR_FXKDYtY_E_0meYx5weE7hp7lO6Q3LfNXFJWkgknmEokGuYHZerCyWw/s1073/Take+A+Stand.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="706" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VOv039MpfRjxEgsppYkw67d6ebAl6aSwUQYt77SY0nGmNAsJBHDKezOSA5QEcQn0lss60IHscuWCJaQupkaR_FXKDYtY_E_0meYx5weE7hp7lO6Q3LfNXFJWkgknmEokGuYHZerCyWw/s320/Take+A+Stand.jpeg" /></a></div></span><div><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“The poems and stories in this anthology offer necessary anecdotes against hate. They are inscription, instruction, witness, warning, remedy, solution, even solace. This anthology is relief.” </span><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> —Diane Glancy </span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Winner of an Amerian Book Award and the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“We can regard Take a Stand: Art Against Hate as a print-form peace march, an ongoing campaign for justice for all of the struggles embodied in these writings and depicted in the artwork included here.” </span><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—Carolyne Wright</span><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">co-editor of Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="https://www.ravenchronicles.org/books/takeastand">Take a Stand: Art Against Hate, </a></em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">edited by Seattle-based writers Anna Balint, Phoebe Bosche, and Thomas Hubbard, contains poems, stories and images from 117 writers, 53 artists, with 69 illustrations, divided into five fluid and intersecting sections: </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Legacies</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">We Are Here</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Why?</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Evidence</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Resistance</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. We begin with </span><em style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Legacies</em><span style="background-color: #fafafa; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.69); font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0.15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> because the current increased climate of hate in this country didn’t begin with the 2016 election, and to find its roots we must look to U.S. history.</span></span></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-15939624854569496852021-02-01T02:00:00.006-08:002021-02-01T02:00:00.628-08:00Home Rocks<div><span style="font-family: georgia;">by Kim Shuck</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">This morning I hear the singing </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">One mountain to another </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Across valley and piped creek </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rock </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tumbling in culvert </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Translating water into </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Serpentine thoughts </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">When they moved the star map </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I could hear her singing </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can hear her singing now </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can hear her learning </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Granite story </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Heat and cooling </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">We are all stories in series </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The water we are </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The water that has carried us </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Has carried stone </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Has cracked a surface has </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sung through the culverts </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another kind of </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">mapping of </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Writing </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A travel story a </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Song of staying and of </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Shifting </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A song called across this valley from this mountain to another </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A scatter </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">A collection </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I found a scrap of you </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Wrenched from your hill </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mounted on a museum wall </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">We sang quiet songs to one other </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">All afternoon </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dissident rocks that we are </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just today I could hear our home hills </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The waters that polished us </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Humming an answer</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.</span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kim Shuck, a native of San Francisco whose work explores her multiethnic roots, is San Francisco’s seventh poet laureate. </span><br style="font-family: Times;" /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A lifelong resident of San Francisco, Shuck lives in the Castro district. Her poetry collections include <i>Clouds Running In</i>, <i>Rabbit Stories, </i><i>Smuggling Cherokee </i>and <i>Deer Trails.</i> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Shuck also teaches at the California College of Art, in the diversity department, and has taught at San Francisco State University. She has volunteered in San Francisco Unified School District classrooms for two decades. <a href="http://www.kimshuck.com">www.kimshuck.com</a></span></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-1615868944092001412021-01-07T16:52:00.001-08:002024-03-08T14:55:26.155-08:00Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2_n3GRcsDFX5qrTJszoRgpkmpFodE7arJfYc0HizF_40xdDhOZ-Qwz66VSNflc_2fsRw7nSX5JQ_09Ur84lqH2sh0aD7vULRxjMGdbxDQ84_aEsmr6DOhyphenhyphenr1eWMx0I5jOyKTWiS0_hI/s905/Dragonfly.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="905" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2_n3GRcsDFX5qrTJszoRgpkmpFodE7arJfYc0HizF_40xdDhOZ-Qwz66VSNflc_2fsRw7nSX5JQ_09Ur84lqH2sh0aD7vULRxjMGdbxDQ84_aEsmr6DOhyphenhyphenr1eWMx0I5jOyKTWiS0_hI/w400-h180/Dragonfly.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">By Robert Bensen </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The recent discoveries of over 1,000 Indigenous children’s graves near boarding and residential schools are the latest developments in the story of assimilative, arguably genocidal education in the U.S. and Canada. In poetry, fiction, and memoir, the boarding school experience is represented in <i>Children of the Dragonfly</i>, the first anthology of Indian literature devoted to Indian child education and welfare. The anthology also includes literature on adoption and foster care, when some 35 percent of Indian children were raised in non-Indian settings during the Sixties Scoop in Canada and the U.S. crisis that led to passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. Dragonfly is an ancient spirit in the Zuni story that saves two abandoned children and restores them to their people. That spirit is infused in the literature collected in <i><a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/children-of-the-dragonfly">Children of the Dragonfly</a>.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Boarding schools were created to assimilate Indian children to the white world, which required the loss of cultural traditions. The literature tells us, however, that children kept their stories and practices as much as they could. U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s “<i>The Woman Who Fell from the Sky</i>” (1994) retells the ancient creation story in the story of Johnny and Lila. Together they endured the rigors and privations of boarding school, but afterward went their separate ways. Johnny joined the army. Lila worked at Dairy Queen and cleaned houses until she entered the story that had been her refuge at school. She married one of the stars and lived in the Sky World, where she was sure “she could find love in a place that did not know the disturbance of death.”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/2021/07/children-of-the-dragonfly-native-american-voices-on-child-custody-and-education">Read more</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/children-of-the-dragonfly">Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The University of Arizona Press</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-55705852300233668392021-01-06T14:35:00.001-08:002021-01-06T14:37:30.964-08:00Yellow Medicine Review<span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiifY66a5Ilai2f1ZpqtpFEv9zYz9Dwz1CPW2-GN1K7uePhdoXgM7bh9ZcbsgPFF74cpTlvkvgfmyfvUeNYD0ij3MTI2rautRq3h5h_-jwQH4iHoEkbXyq5pL5xkiadtqezwBGvaVDAss8/s1364/134670105_10159069429993293_8822579204091079915_o.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1364" data-original-width="902" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiifY66a5Ilai2f1ZpqtpFEv9zYz9Dwz1CPW2-GN1K7uePhdoXgM7bh9ZcbsgPFF74cpTlvkvgfmyfvUeNYD0ij3MTI2rautRq3h5h_-jwQH4iHoEkbXyq5pL5xkiadtqezwBGvaVDAss8/s320/134670105_10159069429993293_8822579204091079915_o.jpg" /></a></div>"Women's Wisdom, Women's Strength" Issue. Guest edited by CMarie Fuhrman. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art: MAESTRAPEACE, detail of the Healing Panel, mural on The San Francisco Women's Building, 18th and Valencia Streets, by Juana Alicia, Miranda Bergman, Edythe Boone, Susan Cervantes, Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton and Irene Perez. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Contributors include Julian Ankney, Tacey M. Atsitty, Dawn Pichon Barron, Esther G. Belin, Kimberly Blaeser, Linda Boyden, Dr. Deidra Suwanee Dees, Marisa Duarte, Zoe Antoinette Eddy, Sarah Christine Hennessey, Lance Henson, Ines Hernandez-Avila, Boderra Joe, Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada, Manny Loley, Amber McCrary, Ruby Hansen Murray, Elise Paschen, Beth Piatote, Ursula Pike, Vivian Faith Prescott, Suzanne Rancourt, Marcie Rendon, C.R. Resetarits, Barbara Robidoux, Kim Shuck, Beverly Singer, Angel Sobotta, w.C.Sy / waaseyaa'sin Christine Sy, Jonathan Taylor, Tavia Torralba, Terra Trevor, J.K. Tsosie, Angie Trudell Vasquez, Steven Warren, Kyle White, Kimberly Gail Wieser, and Ray Young Bear.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="font-family: Times;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://www.yellowmedicinereviewstore.com/about.html">Yellow Medicine Review</a> </i><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought </span></i></div><div style="font-family: Times;"><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.yellowmedicinereviewstore.com/store/p36/Yellow_Medicine_Review_Fall_2020.html">Women's Wisdom, Women's Strength</a></i></div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-82215576179010819992020-10-14T10:04:00.001-07:002020-10-14T10:04:57.739-07:00When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through<span style="font-family: georgia;">Edited by </span><a href="https://www.joyharjo.com" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank">Joy Harjo</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">; Published in 2020
Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGY9VsIy-B40ArcZdOJBZCG-7TWxJNAfvK20kOqL8kEUYt6WzL16qHB-pGXrE11TCZFNTT-d7gFkvwgDd36ScY2KlMF2_ceivDRzVS-drCRGaGsfSTygTRgGRPNB2OtakainhcrjURTm0/s499/51TDyWk19dL._SX328_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGY9VsIy-B40ArcZdOJBZCG-7TWxJNAfvK20kOqL8kEUYt6WzL16qHB-pGXrE11TCZFNTT-d7gFkvwgDd36ScY2KlMF2_ceivDRzVS-drCRGaGsfSTygTRgGRPNB2OtakainhcrjURTm0/w212-h320/51TDyWk19dL._SX328_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-92062873572300802742020-10-14T10:02:00.006-07:002020-10-27T13:26:18.461-07:00Tending the Fire: Native Voices and Portraits <a href="https://www.unmpress.com/books/tending-fire/9780826356451">University of New Mexico Press</a><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhluvzfRmtNbuam2ynybWbIWYEXeEagQ8F3B4mOo4d5HnzUcUCIELRUXght6pPBJ-PeUZrcuaS3xrjohxlw3IY0J8-hyWgsMG2sW7qAq6OITm0y-VY2msBWJJ2FBbNJNIEHtN2cN57A07Y/s196/9780826356451.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="196" data-original-width="147" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhluvzfRmtNbuam2ynybWbIWYEXeEagQ8F3B4mOo4d5HnzUcUCIELRUXght6pPBJ-PeUZrcuaS3xrjohxlw3IY0J8-hyWgsMG2sW7qAq6OITm0y-VY2msBWJJ2FBbNJNIEHtN2cN57A07Y/w240-h320/9780826356451.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>Tending the Fire by photographer Christopher Felver with an Introduction by Linda Hogan and a foreword by Simon J. Ortiz, celebrates the poets and writers who represent the wide range of Native American voices in literature today.
In these commanding portraits, Felver’s distinctive visual signature and unobtrusive presence capture each artist’s strength, integrity, and character.
Accompanying each portrait is a handwritten poem or prose piece that helps reveal the origin of the poet’s language and legends<b>.</b></div>
<br />
As the individuals share their unique voices, <i>Tending the Fire</i> introduces us to the diversity and complexity of Native culture through the authors’ generous and passionate stories, reminding us that “Native Americans today are as modern as the Space Age, and each in their own way carries forth the cultural heritage ‘from whence they came.’ Their abiding legacy as the first people of this continent has found its voice in the hard-won wisdom of their art and activism.<br />
<br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Featured Authors</b>: Francisco X. Alarcón; Sherman Alexie; Indira Allegra; Paula Gunn Allen; Crisosto Apache; Annette Arkeketa; Jimmy Santiago Baca; Dennis Banks; Jim Barnes; Kimberly L. Becker; Duane Big Eagle; Sherwin Bitsui; Julian Talamantez Brolaski; Lauralee Brown; Joseph Bruchac; Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle; Elizabeth Cook-Lynn; Jonny Cournoyer; Alice Crow; Lucille Lang Day; Susan Deer Cloud; Ramona Emerson; Heid E. Erdrich; Louise Erdrich ; Pura Fé; Jennifer Elise Foerster; Eric Gansworth; Diane Glancy; Jewelle Gomez; Rain Gomez; Sequoyah Guess; Q.R. Hand, Jr.; Joy Harjo; Allison Hedge Coke; Travis Hedge Coke; Lance Henson; Trace Lara Hentz; Inés Hernández-Avila; Charlie Hill; Roberta Hill; Geary Hobson; Linda Hogan; LeAnne Howe; Andrew Jolivétte; em jollie; Joan Naviyuk Kane; Maurice Kenny; Bruce King; Sharmagne Leland-St.John; Chip Livingston; Charly Lowry; James Luna; Lee Marmon; Molly McGlennen; Russell Means; Deborah Miranda; Gail Mitchell; N. Scott Momaday; Catherine Nelson-Rodriguez; Linda Noel; dg nanouk okpik; Simon J. Ortiz; Laura Ortman; A. Kay Oxendine; Juanita Pahdopony; Evan Pritchard; Mary Grace Pewewardy; Ishmael Reed; Martha Redbone; Bobby J. Richardson; Ladonna Evans Richardson; Barbara Robidoux; Linda Rodriguez; Wendy Rose; Kurt Schweigman; Kim Shuck; Cedar Sigo; Leslie Marmon Silko; Arigon Starr; James Thomas Stevens; Inés Talamantez; Luci Tapahanso; Nazbah Tom; Cecil Taylor; Rebecca Hatcher Travis; David Treuer; Terra Trevor; Quincy Troupe; John Trudell; Gerald Vizenor; Elissa Washuta; Floyd Redcrow Westerman; Orlando White; Kim Wieser; Diane Wilson; Elizabeth A. Woody</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-16639061492174754232020-10-14T08:53:00.001-07:002020-10-14T08:53:29.188-07:00Sing Poetry from the Indigenous Americas<div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The University of Arizona Press</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqsUVyjsn2GZ20-ldpQm4vQZ3cDA1BfSKqCAl3GJuekD7Inf0oHvzfdBuMSVNMOcPrtZaI0xkXGSR79xxrWzzuEYdBxjLGMYmIqqNaB_LSil_mdkC-QaCSozY_9hlWsC9sjlW6EsKzvFQ/s1000/9780816528912.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="630" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqsUVyjsn2GZ20-ldpQm4vQZ3cDA1BfSKqCAl3GJuekD7Inf0oHvzfdBuMSVNMOcPrtZaI0xkXGSR79xxrWzzuEYdBxjLGMYmIqqNaB_LSil_mdkC-QaCSozY_9hlWsC9sjlW6EsKzvFQ/s320/9780816528912.jpg" /></a></div>Editor and poet Allison Adelle Hedge Coke assembles this multilingual collection of Indigenous American poetry, joining voices old and new in songs of witness and reclamation. Unprecedented in scope, <a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/author/allison-adelle-hedge-coke" target="_blank"><i>Sing Poetry from the Indigenous Americas</i></a> gathers more than eighty poets from across the Americas, covering territory that stretches from Alaska to Chile, and features familiar names like Sherwin Bitsui, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, Lee Maracle, and Simon Ortiz alongside international poets—both emerging and acclaimed—from regions underrepresented in anthologies. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">They write from disparate zones and parallel experience, from lands of mounded earthwork long-since paved, from lands of ancient ball courts and the first great cities on the continents, from places of cold, from places of volcanic loam, from zones of erased history and ongoing armed conflict, where “postcolonial” is not an academic concept but a lived reality. As befits a volume of such geographical inclusivity, many poems here appear in multiple languages, translated by fellow poets and writers like Juan Felipe Herrera and Cristina Eisenberg. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hedge Coke’s thematic organization of the poems gives them an added resonance and continuity, and readers will appreciate the story of the genesis of this project related in Hedge Coke’s deeply felt introduction, which details her experiences as an invited performer at several international poetry festivals. Sing is a journey compelled by the exploration of kinship and the desire for songs that open “pathways of return.”</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-41211712879523641642020-10-14T08:50:00.004-07:002024-03-08T14:55:45.598-08:00Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The University of Arizona Press</span></p><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7kZ7n7hhqQYotnwwy8CDl4mDh1zaN6L87ifndSkBLJEh9wAg1nrCfBBS_B9B8yCEDyijhW02xnwpmQgVj7fbgTsGK41p2manV_popl_6QDEgAVYxlpWKI7Y1_psuip0mSgrYi4kcxVtc/s200/dragonfly_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="132" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7kZ7n7hhqQYotnwwy8CDl4mDh1zaN6L87ifndSkBLJEh9wAg1nrCfBBS_B9B8yCEDyijhW02xnwpmQgVj7fbgTsGK41p2manV_popl_6QDEgAVYxlpWKI7Y1_psuip0mSgrYi4kcxVtc/w211-h320/dragonfly_.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>Native American children have long been subject to removal from their homes for placement in residential schools and, more recently, in foster or adoptive homes. The governments of both the United States and Canada, having reduced Native nations to the legal status of dependent children, historically have asserted a surrogate parentalism over Native children themselves.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><i style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/children-of-the-dragonfly" target="_blank">Children of the Dragonfly</a>, </i><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">edited by Robert Bensen,</span> is the first anthology to document this struggle for cultural survival on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. Through autobiography and interviews, fiction and traditional tales, official transcripts and poetry, these voices— Seneca, Cherokee, Mohawk, Navajo, and many others— weave powerful accounts of struggle and loss into a moving testimony to perseverance and survival. </span></div><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Invoking the dragonfly spirit of Zuni legend who helps children restore a way of life that has been taken from them, the anthology explores the breadth of the conflict about Native childhood.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Included are works of contemporary authors Joy Harjo, Luci Tapahonso, and others; classic writers Zitkala-Sa and E. Pauline Johnson; and contributions from twenty important new writers as well. They take readers from the boarding school movement of the 1870s to the Sixties Scoop in Canada and the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 in the United States. They also spotlight the tragic consequences of racist practices such as the suppression of Indian identity in government schools and the campaign against Indian childbearing through involuntary sterilization.<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">CONTENTS</b><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">Part 1. Traditional Stories and Lives</b><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Severt Young Bear (Lakota) and R. D. Theisz, <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">To Say "Child"</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Zitkala-Sa (Yankton Sioux), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Toad and the Boy</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Delia Oshogay (Chippewa), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Oshkikwe's Baby</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Michele Dean Stock (Seneca), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Seven Dancers</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Mary Ulmer Chiltoskey (Cherokee), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Goldilocks Thereafter</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Marietta Brady (Navajo), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Two Stories</i></span></div><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></i><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">Part 2. Boarding and Residential Schools</b><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Embe (Marianna Burgess), from <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Stiya: or, a Carlisle Indian Girl at Home</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Black Bear (Blackfeet), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Who Am I?</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />E. Pauline Johnson (Mohawk), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">As It Was in the Beginning</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Lee Maracle (Stoh:lo), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Black Robes</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Gordon D. Henry, Jr. (White Earth Chippewa), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Prisoner of Haiku</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Luci Tapahonso (Navajo), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Snakeman</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Joy Harjo (Muskogee), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Woman Who Fell from the Sky</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><b style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br /></b></span></div><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">Part 3. Child Welfare and Health Services</b><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Problems That American Indian Families Face in Raising Their Children, United States Senate, April 8 and 9, 1974<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Mary TallMountain (Athabaskan), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Five Poems</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Virginia Woolfclan, <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Missing Sister</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Lela Northcross Wakely (Potawatomi/Kickapoo), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Indian Health</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d'Alene), from <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Indian Killer</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Milton Lee (Cheyenne River Sioux) and Jamie Lee, <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Search for Indian</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><b style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br /></b></span></div><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">Part 4. Children of the Dragonfly</b><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Peter Cuch (Ute), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">I Wonder What the Car Looked Like</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />S. L. Wilde (Anishnaabe), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">A Letter to My Grandmother</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Eric Gansworth (Onondaga), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">It Goes Something Like This</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Kimberly Roppolo (Cherokee/Choctaw/Creek), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Breeds and Outlaws</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Phil Young (Cherokee) and Robert Bensen, <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Wetumka</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Lawrence Sampson (Delaware/Eastern Band Cherokee), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Long Road Home</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Beverley McKiver (Ojibway), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">When the Heron Speaks</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Joyce carlEtta Mandrake (White Earth Chippewa), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Memory Lane Is the Next Street Over</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Alan Michelson (Mohawk), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Lost Tribe</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Patricia Aqiimuk Paul (Inupiaq), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Connection</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Terra Trevor (Cherokee/Delaware/Seneca), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Pushing up the Sky</i><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" />Annalee Lucia Bensen (Mohegan/Cherokee), <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Two Dragonfly Dream Songs</i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-90154823915653576302020-10-14T08:48:00.001-07:002024-03-08T14:56:06.859-08:00The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing After Removal<p> <span style="font-family: georgia;">University of Oklahoma Press</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl5JvLMdOUaJoWKU9ra2cIb7Xx2HBB0yxwq4svytHFQlQLT1x8GFhSIzMeyfAjDVxKoJ8_AaEQfTavd6LOe3e2o4ye2mNZ5bBbKLPBaNrAZqDuV8x8_KmKAL90FiDz7wzx1uSsv4qvwik/s200/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="133" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl5JvLMdOUaJoWKU9ra2cIb7Xx2HBB0yxwq4svytHFQlQLT1x8GFhSIzMeyfAjDVxKoJ8_AaEQfTavd6LOe3e2o4ye2mNZ5bBbKLPBaNrAZqDuV8x8_KmKAL90FiDz7wzx1uSsv4qvwik/w213-h320/images.jpg" width="213" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span>Native literature, composed of western literary tradition is packed into the hyphens of the oral tradition. It is termed a “renaissance” but contemporary Native writing is both something old emerging in new forms and something that has never been asleep. </span><span>The two-hundred-year-old myth of the vanishing American Indian still holds some credence in the American Southeast, the region from which tens of thousands of Indians were relocated after passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Yet, a significant Indian population remained behind after those massive relocations.</span></span><br /><span><span><br /></span><span>This volume represents every state and every genre, including short stories, excerpts from novels, poetry, essays and plays. Although most works are contemporary, the collection covers the entire post-Removal era. While many speak to the prospects and perils of acculturation, all the writers bear witness to the ways, oblique or straightforward, that they and their families are connected and honor their Indian identities despite the legacy of removal. </span></span><br /><br /><span><i><a href="https://www.oupress.com/books/9783716/the-people-who-stayed">The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing After Removal</a> </i></span><br /><span>edited by Geary Hobson, Janet McAdams, and Kathryn Walkiewicz.</span><br /></span><p></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><br /></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-63382055207838812572020-03-23T15:52:00.002-07:002022-01-06T12:27:25.689-08:00Golden Eagles over Franklin Mountain<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">by Robert Bensen
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Oct. 25, 2018, we counted 128 Golden Eagles, a single-day record for eastern North America. The previous single-day high was 71 (Nov. 11, 2015) so the magnitude of this big day cannot be overstated. The reason for this Golden Eagle push two weeks before the traditional migration peak, is unknown. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> —Andy Mason, Franklin Mountain Hawkwatch 2018 Report<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The scaffold bristled with digital Yashicas clamped on scopes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and monopods strutting in khaki and camouflage, as a flock<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of hawk-watchers scanned quadrants of sky from Otego <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to the peaks where the Susquehanna swerves into the valley, and east.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I stood by, naked eye aswarm with floaters the one,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the other useless that magnifies and smears every human face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Peter, half-felled by flu, and Becky tallied the count <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and helped the dozen-some visitors identify specks <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that could be buzzard, or goshawk, or harrier, or sharp-shinned<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">or rough-legged or Cooper’s or red-tailed hawks, or merlin, falcon,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">kite or kestrel, among twenty-nine listed, including Unknown Raptors, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">hoping for Goldens riding the polar stream from Canada, or, better, one<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">gliding low and hungry on a hunt. I couldn’t see diddle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And it seemed weird to me to have the drum, but to my hand ungloved <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the skin felt warm and taut. So I slipped away and up the path,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">deer-silent for the spring of thatch underfoot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I dug my heels in and labored up the grade, paused<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to catch a breath at the hill’s brow, midway through the field <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">walled in by limb-laced fir and hardwood, when a shape or shadow rose—no, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">an enormous bird rose above the brim and—<i>Wait!</i> I yelled and I swear<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">it gave pause mid-air while bone-chilled I fumbled the drum,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and out of a cloud of sage-smoke started a roll of thunder<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that closed in, closed fast and passed, then the song brought<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a line of thunders helping the verse find drafts and currents <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to ride and sign God-knows-what to the bird, white flame-tongued<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">wings that skimmed the tree-rim, gliding so slowly with the song<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that so tethered the two of us it seemed the wall of trees revolved<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the way between the potter’s thumb and fingers the new bowl turns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We shared the easy slip of air around the bowl of circled trees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Once around, his flight feathers splayed, trimmed then splayed,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">eyes holding steady gaze, with each lift of song a fresh wind. A quick<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">turn of his head and he vanished. Who’d not be at first forlorn? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But filled with that glory who’d mourn or sorrow for long<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">or deny he’d gone to let the others of his kind know,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ready for passage through this valley to the Catskills, that here,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">here someone had kept the song the eagles gave so long ago: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Wanbli gleska, naha anunca, heya a uh chun kay.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mea trocha heya anpetu wawakeay: <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Golden eagles, Spotted eagles, the first to fly with the dawn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">come see this one trying to become a human being, come see.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So they did and were counted: one-hundred twenty-eight strong. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">© Robert Bensen. All rights. Reserved.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 31.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.robertbensen.com">www.robertbensen.com</a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_YpLot2ka4mvZKrj3i8gW1klqrBgdzXpE7g56OsSRanULEPU-sxQRSRiTA_JkUgasfman-RGHwwxxOIhC9kF5l1XbQJ0RKJOGqGDx6RY1dFv2BS4mjNqbiMdJmFBz1pINiOUO0AYUg9M/s1600/51nyz3NkhzL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_YpLot2ka4mvZKrj3i8gW1klqrBgdzXpE7g56OsSRanULEPU-sxQRSRiTA_JkUgasfman-RGHwwxxOIhC9kF5l1XbQJ0RKJOGqGDx6RY1dFv2BS4mjNqbiMdJmFBz1pINiOUO0AYUg9M/s200/51nyz3NkhzL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="133" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjj1SaghVJVwbIJ63ssi7umlvewSYFBlNTGcPh3Sc0X0KUUCwSSqTRRpZsgSaafP0P0Zum7YgQDlaceHh2BCNYPSSbDohEyf8BOzDSKBoIEclJLoygl_Pk9sn2n_8PUOAEsxN8XbAB2Ww/s1600/0.jpeg"><img border="0" data-original-height="166" data-original-width="112" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjj1SaghVJVwbIJ63ssi7umlvewSYFBlNTGcPh3Sc0X0KUUCwSSqTRRpZsgSaafP0P0Zum7YgQDlaceHh2BCNYPSSbDohEyf8BOzDSKBoIEclJLoygl_Pk9sn2n_8PUOAEsxN8XbAB2Ww/s200/0.jpeg" width="135" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">Robert Bensen has published six collections of poetry, including </span><i style="background-color: transparent;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Orenoque-Wetumka-Other-Robert-Bensen/dp/1892471701">Orenoque, Wetumka and; Other Poems</a>, </i><span style="background-color: transparent;">and </span><i style="background-color: transparent;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Before-Robert-Bensen/dp/1944355480/ref=sr_1_2?qid=1558374309&refinements=p_27%3ARobert+Bensen&s=books&sr=1-2&text=Robert+Bensen">Before</a></i><span style="background-color: transparent;">. His work has earned an NEA poetry fellowship, the Robert Penn Warren Award, the Harvard Summer Poetry Prize, and Illinois Arts Council and NY State Council on the Arts awards. His scholarship in the Caribbean and Native America has produced essays, studies, and editions, won fellowships from the NEH and Newberry Library, and led to teaching in St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">He is the editor of </span><i style="background-color: transparent;"><a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/children-of-the-dragonfly">Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education</a>.</i><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">He is Emeritus Professor of English at Hartwick College (1978-2017).</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">He teaches at SUNY-Oneonta, and conducts a poetry workshop at Bright Hill Literary Center, Treadwell.</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-55647570253736322492020-03-22T15:01:00.000-07:002020-03-22T15:06:13.871-07:00Marching orders<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">by Deborah Jang</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sometimes pre-dawn I pretend</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m hiding from the Nazis</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I slo mo breathe in semi-darkness<br />inches from light sleeper </span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Each inhalation rising smooth<br />drawn deep from belly</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ballooning lungs, up open throat,<br />a u-turn at the larynx</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then straight out rounded lips<br />suspended in a gentle O</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All of the above of course —<br />silent, slow, steady.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If we were in Krakow<br />a frosty puff would linger.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here, into a world of hurt,<br />this one bare breath alights.</span></div>
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<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I make myself a secret, a refugee<br />from sight. A figment of creation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Arm waves softly through dark air.<br />No creak. No chafe. No bristle.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No cough. No smacking of dry lips.<br />No errant bump or sniffle.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">With focused grace the body knows<br />the margins of its bearing.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A patch of air is all that lies<br />between liberty and terror. </span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trampling boots kick hard against<br />the mind’s hard won freedom.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Flesh winces at the thought<br />of quick, steel toed precision, </span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of the pounding at the door,<br />the stench of human danger.</span></div>
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<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">History guts presence<br />with shards of hate and fear. </span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Renders mute our sorrow.<br />sends us to our caves</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">where in sacred silence<br />each breath softly quickens.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We make way through harrow<br />in dusky daring measure.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mind’s eye searches escape routes<br />past the brink of dire.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If we were in Krakow we’d pile<br />in the cellar, shush the baby sister,</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">lock eyes with the neighbors.<br />cringe into harsh light.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Would I not go gentle<br />without hiss or fight?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Would I link arms with others<br />and march into harm’s way?</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Would I face tall gallows<br />with head held up high? </span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Would I offer comfort<br />on the train to chambers?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not look away or wither<br />from the cruel of might?</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Moon and sun trade places.<br />I breathe in morning skies. </span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I pray with extra fervor.<br />I note the warning signs.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Practice silence in the air<br />Walk with care, stare down demise.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ease each out-breath into flow.<br />Let each find its way to brave</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">whole and holy into the fray.<br />Breath by breath by breath, unhide.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 12px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Float-True-Deborah-Jang/dp/1951651162/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=deborah+jang&qid=1584133644&sr=8-1"><i>Marching orders</i> is included in <i>Float True </i>by Deborah Jang.</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">© Deborah Jang. All Rights Reserved.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Deborah Jang writes her way through the mysteries, perplexities, and joys of being human — on this planet, at this moment, in this skin. She is also a visual artist, engaging connection through forms and objects. She wanders between Denver, CO and Oceanside, CA; between mind and heart; between land and sea. She is the author of <b style="font-style: italic;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Float-True-Deborah-Jang/dp/1951651162/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=deborah+jang&qid=1584133644&sr=8-1">Float True</a></b>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://deborahjang.com/">deborahjang.com</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-13776206991977633132020-03-20T01:00:00.001-07:002020-10-14T06:31:57.542-07:00Read Native Authors. Hear Native Storytellers.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To ensure the voices of Native American and Indigenous writers and storytellers – past, present, and future – are heard throughout the world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—Lee Francis III, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers</span><br />
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<span style="color: #1f2327;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://riverbloodandcorn.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html">Writing is a legitimate way, an important way, to participate in the empowerment of the community that names me. —Toni Cade Bambara</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF-RrdGMDZlHMRE-3LqMmGJbUL52E7TUUIzU0mSyKVRpkBB0o_76cWdTbvROHO0_OXsioqAfuD55fgVKAzmGOoaqE348qTvOZ95SnZaeprTrI91-sp5BCZT7ETlX2IH4cY91Z-Vv-DZNc/s200/sara_9.jpg" width="144" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4mAPobP7frJHVUdgFo3UA26265IbIq5B5-5_8scYxGnqwiAGXDDR2JmkHD9CSjItdBOQlJGqCE7qxsAcjVIZYsVzyi16G65DiHYaVLQJhNb6LnuBGxIci1ev0BpzVga3YG1Kf_lk2yUs/s1600/about.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="231" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4mAPobP7frJHVUdgFo3UA26265IbIq5B5-5_8scYxGnqwiAGXDDR2JmkHD9CSjItdBOQlJGqCE7qxsAcjVIZYsVzyi16G65DiHYaVLQJhNb6LnuBGxIci1ev0BpzVga3YG1Kf_lk2yUs/s200/about.jpg" width="134" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-78462108681740072742020-02-01T01:00:00.001-08:002021-01-26T09:14:50.117-08:00Arts of Patience<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">by Kim Shuck </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We’ve been collecting stairs for years </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stairs and the notion of stairs </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Build with them like children do </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just like playing with blocks we will </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Paint them with heart ideas with generational hope </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">May yet reach the somewhere else we had in mind </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We wanted so little in those days </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Between the bingo and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Collecting funerals </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Houses subside and the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Screen door doesn’t fit quite the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hedge apples grow </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thorn and poison in the way that they have </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We collect these things </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Comb the rivers and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Creeks the margins of change for things like </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Glass bottles to exchange for bait </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Catch other things that we want too and all of my heroes </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Were good at fileting fish </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And we were in the living room </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gathering stairs in boxes and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Pressed flat in books and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trying not to hide them </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trying not to feel guilty</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">© Kim Shuck. All rights reserved. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXD6GyxqyYQozxJ1veg5MX38SqOwFTTrfds6_apq3LJOc723BkBshpAlYR8PEBc2GdNYzSKxT2kUdDo3Y-ATSX_iaOVe52FtcTh_SQKR4PIWTOioO70tWStJaPs3Tx5xznvgUWpISPfU/s1600/920x920.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="707" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXD6GyxqyYQozxJ1veg5MX38SqOwFTTrfds6_apq3LJOc723BkBshpAlYR8PEBc2GdNYzSKxT2kUdDo3Y-ATSX_iaOVe52FtcTh_SQKR4PIWTOioO70tWStJaPs3Tx5xznvgUWpISPfU/s200/920x920.jpg" width="153" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kim Shuck a native of San Francisco whose work explores her multiethnic roots, is San Francisco’s seventh poet laureate. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A lifelong resident of San Francisco, Shuck lives in the Castro district. Her poetry collections include <i>Clouds Running In</i>, <i>Rabbit Stories, </i><i>Smuggling Cherokee </i>and <i>Deer Trails.</i> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Shuck also teaches at the California College of Art, in the diversity department, and has taught at San Francisco State University. She has volunteered in San Francisco Unified School District classrooms for two decades. <a href="http://www.kimshuck.com/">www.kimshuck.com</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7788467269563327451.post-31177022834286554562020-01-03T10:27:00.000-08:002020-03-22T10:37:35.762-07:00She Cries<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">by Linda Boyden</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She stands alone, </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">cold,</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">shaking, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">four years old, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">freshly plucked </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">from Mamá’s arms </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">dumped into </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a cold building </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">with other children, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">silent or moaning, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">all strangers. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Above her towers a </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">mountain of a man </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">dark clothes, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">darker expression. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He spews </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">harsh, foreign words </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">she doesn’t understand. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She sees the anger </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">etched on his face </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">his eyes like a snake’s, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">cold, unforgiving. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She wets herself </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">cries harder </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">her legs give out </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">she sits down hard </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">rough hands </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">grab her </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">rougher words </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">sting her ears. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She cries </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">for Mamá and Papí. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She is a good girl </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">she is alone, afraid, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and she mourns. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She will never forget.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">© Linda Boyden. All rights reserved. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Linda Boyden is a storyteller and the author of <i><b>The Blue Roses</b></i>, published in 2002 by Lee and Low Books, winning their first New Voices Award. Since then it has won two other national awards and was included on the CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center) 2003 Choices list of recommended titles. Her second book, <i><b>Powwow's Coming</b></i>, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2007. She illustrated it making the pictures from cut-paper collage. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Her third book </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><b><a href="http://www.lindaboyden.com/store.php">Giveaways: An ABC Book of Loanwords from the Americas </a></b></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">was also published by the University of New Mexico Press and again she had the privilege of illustrating the book. A recovering schoolteacher with over thirty years of experience, she has spent most of her adult life leading children to literacy. She enjoys performing at schools and working with students, school visits, storytelling programs at libraries, and presenting at writing conferences and other events around the country. Linda is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, and her local Redding Writers Forum. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.lindaboyden.com/" style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">www.lindaboyden.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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