Formatted Contents Note: |
A blessing by N. Scott Momaday -- Introduction / ... by Joy Harjo -- Northeast and midwest. Writing a poetry of continuance / by Kimberly M. Blaeser -- Anishinaabeg dream song -- The water birds will alight -- Eleazar's elegy for Thomas Thacher / Eleazar, Unknown -- To the pine tree ; On leaving my children John and Jane at school, in the Atlantic states, and preparing to return to the interior / Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) -- Oh, give me back my bended bow / William Walker Jr., Wyandot -- Marshlands ; The song my paddle sings / Emily Pauline Johnson, Mohawk -- On the Long Island Indian / Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, Montaukett -- My industrial work / Anonymous Carlisle Student -- Seven woodland crows ; Family photograph ; Fat green flies / Gerald Vizenor, Anishinaabe-White Earth Nation -- The old man's lazy ; Rattle / Peter Blue Cloud, Mohawk -- Shrinking away ; Rez car / Jim Northrup, Anishinaabe-Fond Du Lac Band of Lake Superior -- Indian singing in 20th century America / Gail Tremblay, Onondaga, Mi'Kmaq -- The real Indian leans against ; Ceremony for completing a poetry reading / Chrystos, Menominee -- Dream of rebirth ; In the longhouse, Oneida Museum ; These rivers remember / Roberta Hill, Oneida -- Everything you need to know in life you'll learn in boarding school / Linda LeGarde Grover, Anishinaabe-Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe -- John Whirlwind's doublebeat songs, 1956 ; Our bird aegis ; One chip of human bone / Ray Young Bear, Meskwaki -- What's an Indian woman to do? / Marcie Rendon, Anishinabbe-White Earth Nation -- Indian machismo or skin to skin / Alex Jacobs, Akwesasne Mohawk -- Song for discharming ; Mapping the land / Denise Sweet, Anishinaabe-White Earth Nation -- Sweetgrass is around her / Salli M. Kawennotakie Benedict, Akwesasne Mohawk -- Dreams of water bodies ; Apprenticed to justice ; Captivity / Kimberly M. Blaeser, Anishinaabe-White Earth Nation -- November becomes the sky with suppers for the dead ; When names escaped us ; Sleeping in the rain / Gordon Henry Jr., Anishinababe-White Earth Nation -- Sure you can ask me a personal question ; Big fun / Diane Burns, Anishinaabe-Lac Courte Oreilles, Chemehuevi -- Prayer bowl / Al Hunter, Anishinaabe, Rainy River First Nations -- Chief Totopotamoi, 1654 ; Hard times / Karenne Wood, Monacan Nation -- Eel / Eric Gansworth, Onondaga -- Tonawanda swamps ; St. James Lake / James Thomas Stevens, Akwesasne Mohawk -- Prodigal daughter / Kimberly Wensaut, Potawatomi -- History / Steve Pacheco, Mdewakanton Dakota -- Nationhood ; Measuring the distance to Oklahoma / Laura Daʼ, Eastern Shawnee -- When I was in Las Vegas and saw a Warhol painting of Geronimo / B: William Bearhart, Anishinaabe-St. Croix Read More |
Summary, etc.: |
"United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo gathers the ... work of more than 160 poets, representing nearly 100 indigenous nations, into the first historically comprehensive Native poetry anthology. This landmark anthology celebrates the indigenous peoples of North America, the first poets of this country, whose literary traditions stretch back centuries. Opening with a blessing from Pulitzer Prize-winner N. Scott Momaday, the book contains powerful introductions from contributing editors who represent the five geographically organized sections. Each section begins with a poem from traditional oral literatures and closes with emerging poets, ranging from Eleazar, a seventeenth-century Native student at Harvard, to Jake Skeets, a young Diné poet born in 1991, and including renowned writers such as Luci Tapahanso, Natalie Diaz, Layli Long Soldier, and Ray Young Bear. When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through offers the extraordinary sweep of Native literature, without which no study of American poetry is complete"-- Read More |