Poetry & Prose

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.

Purchase here.

The collected stories/essays in CHOCTALKING ON OTHER REALITIES, by Choctaw author LeAnne Howe, depict with wry humor the contradictions and absurdities that transpire in a life lived crossing cultures and borders. The result is three parts memoir, one part absurdist fiction, and one part marvelous realism. The collection begins with Howe’s stint working in the bond business for a Wall Street firm as the only American Indian woman (and ‘out’ Democrat) in the company, then chronicles her subsequent travels, invited as an American Indian representative and guest speaker, to indigenous gatherings and academic panels in Jordan, Jerusalem, Romania, and Japan.

Purchase here.

EVIDENCE OF RED contains dramatic events of the creation of a people, interwoven with a haunting narrative of their lost homelands. Howe takes her readers through the chaos of lost lives, the cannibalism of fallen lovers, and invites readers into her world of Choctaw Code Talking. These poems are rebellious and like the Choctaws, they will endure.

Purchase here.