Blood Run

by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

This volume testifies to the need to protect the remarkable ruins of the Indigenous North American city of Blood Run and the sacred remains she guards there in mounded tombs. The persona poems herein emanate its character embraced in architectural accomplishment designed in accordance with the sun and moon and multitudes of stars above.

Genres: Poetry, Contemporary, Indigenous, Native American

120 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2006

About the author

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke authored books include: The Year of the Rat, (American Book Award) Dog Road Woman and Off-Season City Pipe, poetry; Rock Ghost, Willow, Deer, a memoir; and Blood Run, a verse-play that served to lobby for legislation and protection of the Indigenous site. 2014 works: Burn, MadHat Press and Streaming, Coffee House Press. Hedge Coke has edited eight additional collections, including Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas, Effigies, & Effigies II (2014) & directs the Literary Sandhill CraneFest. She came of age cropping tobacco and working fields, waters, and working in factories.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last of the required reading for Laura Furlan's American Indian Literature class at UMASS-Amherst. A really beautiful book with wonderful symmetry both physical and thematic, conscientious of presenting all voices be they good or bad on the circumstance and history surrounding Blood Run.


Here are some sites provided by Prof. Furlan for further learning:
http://www.iowahistory.org/historic-s...
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~call0031/blood...

For a really interesting take of the potentially embedded mathematics of the book, the reader is referred to "Serpentine Figures, Sinuous Relations: Thematic Geometry in Allison Hedge Coke's Blood Run" by Chadwick Allen.

[Callie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an important read! I didn't even know mound cities existed, but now I'm so excited to due more research into this bit of Indigenous history! Beautifully and cleverly written :)

[Caroline Gerardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guarding a sacred place between South Dakota and Iowa. This is a series of the oldest sites of human habitation in the United States. Ancient burial mounds at this site have been looted, destroyed and farmed over for hundreds of years. A snake burial mound plowed under for the railroad. Bodies, jewelry, pots and religious items of the Plains Tribes broken and tossed.

Hedge Coke sings about the river, the sky, the eternal.
She leads us to action to protect not just the tribes who remain at this holy place;
but the belief that the pheasants, antelope, and buffalo who walk upon the mound
must also be treasured.

Highest recommendation for Blood Run!

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immediately one of my favorite poetry collections, one, because I particularly like the cover to cover narrative arc format and, two, because these poems are damn good. Powerful, full of belief, and a call to action. Loved reading this.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Often sublime, sometimes inscrutable, poems crafted by a mound-builder of meaning, channeler of ancestral voices. Favorites include “North Star” and “Ghosts”

“In this acuity, this keenness
Insight pronounces utterances
not unlike prophecy.” —“Ghosts”

[Abby]

Wasn't crazy about the individual poems, but I can't put this one aside. So I have biases...I love the mounds and want people to appreciate them. And I'm so on board with poetically rendering a site, especially one as incredible as Blood Run. I love the way these various voices speak this piece of land and what it means and how it should be treated in the future. And whatever else you say about this book, it worked--one of the largest, most beautiful mound cities in the U.S. is now Good Earth State Park at Blood Run instead of subdivisions. So I was annoyed by the number of sentences with the articles taken out, but in the end, this was much more helpful than not.

Favorite is "Burial Mound," page 46.

[Allison HedgeCoke]

Chadwick Allen
Serpentine Figures, Sinuous Relations: Thematic Geometry in Allison Hedge Coke’s Blood Run
Within Indigenous consciousness, science is also an art form, which incorporates both an objective explanation of how things happen in the natural world and a way of “looking.”
—Gregory Cajete, Native Science: Natural Laws of Inter- dependence (2000)
Across thousands of years, within broader prac- tices of sacred science and civic art, Indigenous North Americans layered rock and packed soil into durable, multiply functional, highly.... American Literature December 2010.

[Sheila Rocha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not just a compilation of poems, rather, it is a testament to indigenous history that reclaims the existence of pre-european community/urban culture/industry and trade. Blood Run is a testament to the plains people and one finds the essence of geo-piety in word carvings that grace each page. The author, Hedge-Coke sculpts the most poetic of images that together constructs an honor ceremony of dramatic literature.

[Smita Magar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book that will proudly testify for my love: for roots and for universal energy that is carried by 'The People, The Sun, The Moon, The Morning Star, The Blue Star, The North Star, The Dawn, The River, The Mounds, The Wind! for - The Dog, The Snake, The Fox, The Deer, The Redwing Blackbird, The Beaver, The Buffalo! for - The Corn, The Sunflower...everything that is closer to my heart.

This is the book that I will come back to read, again and again.

[Sherry Chandler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book better than I did. I think I read it at the wrong time.