—Lee Francis III, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers
Read Native Authors. Hear Native Storytellers.
To ensure the voices of Native American and Indigenous writers and storytellers – past, present, and future – are heard throughout the world.
—Lee Francis III, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers
—Lee Francis III, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers
Arts of Patience
by Kim Shuck
We’ve been collecting stairs for years
Stairs and the notion of stairs
Build with them like children do
Just like playing with blocks we will
Paint them with heart ideas with generational hope
May yet reach the somewhere else we had in mind
We wanted so little in those days
Between the bingo and
Collecting funerals
Houses subside and the
Screen door doesn’t fit quite the
Hedge apples grow
Thorn and poison in the way that they have
We collect these things
Comb the rivers and
Creeks the margins of change for things like
Glass bottles to exchange for bait
Catch other things that we want too and all of my heroes
Were good at fileting fish
And we were in the living room
Gathering stairs in boxes and
Pressed flat in books and
Trying not to hide them
Trying not to feel guilty
© Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.
Kim Shuck a native of San Francisco whose work explores her multiethnic roots, is San Francisco’s seventh poet laureate.
A lifelong resident of San Francisco, Shuck lives in the Castro district. Her poetry collections include Clouds Running In, Rabbit Stories, Smuggling Cherokee and Deer Trails. 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. www.kimshuck.com
We’ve been collecting stairs for years
Stairs and the notion of stairs
Build with them like children do
Just like playing with blocks we will
Paint them with heart ideas with generational hope
May yet reach the somewhere else we had in mind
We wanted so little in those days
Between the bingo and
Collecting funerals
Houses subside and the
Screen door doesn’t fit quite the
Hedge apples grow
Thorn and poison in the way that they have
We collect these things
Comb the rivers and
Creeks the margins of change for things like
Glass bottles to exchange for bait
Catch other things that we want too and all of my heroes
Were good at fileting fish
And we were in the living room
Gathering stairs in boxes and
Pressed flat in books and
Trying not to hide them
Trying not to feel guilty
© Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.
Kim Shuck a native of San Francisco whose work explores her multiethnic roots, is San Francisco’s seventh poet laureate.
A lifelong resident of San Francisco, Shuck lives in the Castro district. Her poetry collections include Clouds Running In, Rabbit Stories, Smuggling Cherokee and Deer Trails. 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. www.kimshuck.com
Archive | Author
Kim Shuck
She Cries
by Linda Boyden
She stands alone,
cold,shaking,
four years old,
freshly plucked
from Mamá’s arms
dumped into
a cold building
with other children,
silent or moaning,
all strangers.
Above her towers a
mountain of a man
dark clothes,
darker expression.
He spews
harsh, foreign words
she doesn’t understand.
She sees the anger
etched on his face
his eyes like a snake’s,
cold, unforgiving.
She wets herself
cries harder
her legs give out
she sits down hard
rough hands
grab her
rougher words
sting her ears.
She cries
for Mamá and Papí.
She is a good girl
she is alone, afraid,
and she mourns.
She will never forget.
© Linda Boyden. All rights reserved.
Linda Boyden is a storyteller and the author of The Blue Roses, 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, Powwow's Coming, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2007. She illustrated it making the pictures from cut-paper collage. Her third book Giveaways: An ABC Book of Loanwords from the Americas 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.
www.lindaboyden.com
She stands alone,
cold,shaking,
four years old,
freshly plucked
from Mamá’s arms
dumped into
a cold building
with other children,
silent or moaning,
all strangers.
Above her towers a
mountain of a man
dark clothes,
darker expression.
He spews
harsh, foreign words
she doesn’t understand.
She sees the anger
etched on his face
his eyes like a snake’s,
cold, unforgiving.
She wets herself
cries harder
her legs give out
she sits down hard
rough hands
grab her
rougher words
sting her ears.
She cries
for Mamá and Papí.
She is a good girl
she is alone, afraid,
and she mourns.
She will never forget.
© Linda Boyden. All rights reserved.
Linda Boyden is a storyteller and the author of The Blue Roses, 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, Powwow's Coming, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2007. She illustrated it making the pictures from cut-paper collage. Her third book Giveaways: An ABC Book of Loanwords from the Americas 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.
www.lindaboyden.com
Archive | Author
Linda Boyden
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If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.—Barry Lopez, in Crow and Weasel