Monday Must Read! New Poets of Native Nations

New Poets of Native Nations by Heid E. Erdrich 

from Graywolf Press 

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from Erdrich’s introduction: 

“Native nations are our homelands, our political bodies, our heritages, and the places that make us who we are as Natives in the United States of America. More than 566 Native nations exist in the U.S. and yet “Native American poetry” does not really exist. Our poetry might be hundreds of distinct tribal and cultural poetries as well as American poetry. The extraordinary poets gathered in New Poets of Native Nations have distinct and close ties to specific indigenous nations—including Alaskan Native and island nations. Most are members or citizens of a tribe: Dakota, Diné, Onondaga, Choctaw, and Anishinaabe/Ojibwe (my tribe), and more than a dozen others. These nations determine their own membership and their own acceptance of descendants. My criterion that a poet have a clear connection to a Native nation has nothing to do with blood quantum, the federal basis for recognition of American Indians. Race also has nothing to do with it. Geography is not a factor. These poets live on reservations, in nations, and in cities or towns. Some of their reservations and homelands are urban; most are rural. Many of these poets have relatives across the borders of Mexico and Canada. Most are multiracial. They are also a diverse group in terms of age, gender, education, and poetic styles, but they have one thing in common. Not one of them identifies as “Native American” alone.”

Read more at LitHub. 

Purchase this beautiful book here.