The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket: Poems

by Kinsale Drake, Jacqueline Allen Trimble (compiler)

The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket traverses the Southwest landscape, exploring intricate relationships between Native peoples and the natural world, land, pop culture, twentieth-century music, and multi-generational representations. Oscillating between musical influences, including the repercussions of ethnomusicology, and the present/past/future, the collection rewrites and rerights what it means to be Indigenous, queer, and even formerly-emo in the twenty-first century.

Genres: Poetry, Indigenous, Nonfiction, Feminism, Native American

80 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2024

Reviews

[Victor Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief & Beautiful. Finished in 40 minutes; I will think about for forty years.

[Alisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could have read this when I was a little girl on the rez 😭 but it brings me joy to know that rez girls will grow up with books and stories like this

[Asha Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got to see Kinsale read a few weeks ago in St. Louis after six (I think) years since we met at a summer creative writing camp in Massachusetts. It was such a treat. Listening to her read and then reading the entirety of her collection made me feel 17 and glimmer-eyes again. I’ve never been to the desert but I was there with her. When she was writing/reading about the getting slung around in the back of a truck bed to go to the swimming hole, I thought of my summer in Alabama muddy in a truck bed coming up from hours tubing on the river. Heartbreak as fuel, love as resistance, landscape as monument, all the things we take for granted, all the mundane things, moments, heart tugs, etc that are not so mundane at all. I guess my point is that I saw myself here, in a collection not at all about me or anything I really know. But I do know. And that’s what good poetry does. It reminded me of why we write in the first place. What there is to write about. That storytelling is for everyone, even young people who have less “and so the point is:” and more “i came and I saw:” So five stars. I’ll be thinking about this for a while.

For my friends: I am transitioning off of GoodReads in the new year. Pls find me on Fable!
https://fable.co/asha-marie-l-b-43262...

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Felt transported and different than before I read it. So beautiful.

[bella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kinsale Drake’s poetry collection is a luminous love letter to the Navajo people. Full of vivid details, the poems are nostalgic, smooth, and lyrical, The Sky Was a Dark Blanket sings of intergenerational bonds and musical references that make up memory and shape who we are. Drake beautifully depicts food/feeding as care between loved ones, as well as the powerful connection between people and the land.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Girl, writing about MCR and Taco Bell, I felt a lot of feelings. 

These were truly, absolutely beautiful words. A huge punch in a small package. 

[Rhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5! I was lucky enough to see the author in person at the launch of Soft as Bones in Toronto where she shared 2 poems! An incredible collection I look forward to rereading and deepening my understanding.

[Maimouna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful collection of poetry and a nice switch up from the prose I’ve been reading! I’ve been following Kinsale for a few years and was so excited to hear about her book. Pumped to be attending her tour in sf tomorrow ☺️

[Lena · Rating 5 out of 5]

someone should kill me rn not a single one of these poems was a miss

[Ashley Y · Rating 4 out of 5]

:) 🌟

[Kimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

have loved kinsale’s work for many years and this was such a joy to read <3 so beautiful and unforgettable, there are several poems in this book that i think about very frequently!!

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of poetry with fantastic imagery of the southwest, her connection to the land as an indigenous person, and generational relationships. a perfect Earth Day (well, almost) and National Poetry Month read.

My favorites of the collection:
Coming-of-age song
after Sacred Water (Our Emergence)
Making a Monument Valley

[Aether · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love the descriptions of the desert!!! it was so moving- literally full of roiling cicada-singing constellation waves across the pages of this book

[Lauren Oertel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book at Books on the Bosque and immediately fell in love with the cover. What a delight that the pages inside are just as stunning.

I am overwhelmed by the beauty and comfort that pours from these poems. As they weave in and out of the magic of deserts, music, stars, ghosts, and the power of the love of family, it becomes its own song. This collection is a map for finding joy and safety and survival. Everyone should read this. And I can’t wait to see what the author gifts us with next.

Five stars (or really… all the stars the coyote threw into the night sky to shatter the black into brilliance) *One of my favorite lines/images in the book*

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

a great poetry collection. I had the opportunity to see the author at a reading. she had a wonderful stage presence.

[Deanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

love love love the poem remembering!

[Natasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poems were more personal than I expected. I was hoping for more traditional stories, or descriptions of the land. BUT, the stories are still amazing and heartfelt. Nizhóní yee’ !

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only thing I didn’t like about this collection was its length! TOO SHORT!!
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I loved how music was a touchstone that kept popping in and out of the poems. I loved the mix / contrast between nature and urban, deserts and highways (“Making a Moument Valley” was a fave). I loved how the poet saw things in her parents they didn’t think they were letting anyone see. I loved how the poems went back and forth between remembering and forecasting, the past and the future surrounding each moment.
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All week I’ve been thinking about the concept of accessible or accessibility, particularly when it comes to poetry, thanks to Laura’s Poetry School newsletter, and in this collection what makes it accessible to me is how much it welcomes in the reader, pulls the reader in with smells and sounds and scratches and scrapes. There are Navajo (I think? The ones I looked up translations for were) words scattered throughout, and there are references to things I had to google, but none of that blocked me from accessing the beauty here, the drive, the life. That might not make it accessible to everyone, but I felt pulled in from the very start.
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Two other favorites:
“Blacklist Me”
“Notebook” (something very Ross Gay-esque about this one)
“Theme for the Nautical Cowboy”

[Nicole Korczyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lines I think will stay with me:

From August: “Planting season. I want / to roll in the mud and be a mother. / I want the seeds to two-step in my skin.”

From everything is weird in the NE because there are no NDN memorials, only NDN names: “When our bones are found / it’s called a haunting”

From Alabama, 1992: “My mother finishes a puzzle with her quiet heart–belly / big, the moon / of her luminous / in the gas lamps.”

From after Sacred Water (Our Emergence) II.: “what do you call ancestral homestead/ stopped / like a kitchen sink/ the water/ of your people / redirected to ranches/ fatten cattle that render the san juan undrinkable/ / quench the white men/ in bars/ that don’t admit NDNs/”

The entirety of Theme for the nautical cowboy.

From: Creation Story Blues: “I ask you / questions from the passenger side / because I love to watch you stitch the world / together.”

From: BLACKLIST ME: “the best thing about rock ‘n’ roll is / you don’t have to do anything right / to survive. You don’t even have / to make sense to a white English / professor who wants chronology / when I want six strings and a truck careening / into the horizon.”

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

What a joy to hear the poet give voice to these poems at a recent reading! In this electrifying debut, the poet’s depictions of life, especially on the rez, are illuminated with scintillating details that bring each poem to life in cinematic ways: “Theme for a nautical cowboy,” “Put on that KTTN” as two examples. The poet’s way with language is remarkable, especially her unique coinages, such as “rivering,” and “Lenapehoking.”

“Do the ghosts, too, feel comforted
in the haze as you sing me
the birth of the Milky Way?”
—from “Creation Story Blues,” p. 44


Favorite Poems:
“spangled”
“August”
“Wax Cylinder”
“You survive the end of the world in Kayenta, AZ with your mother”
“everything is weird in the NE because there are no NDN memorials, only NDN names”
“Alabama, 1992”
“after Sacred Water (Our Emergence)”
“Theme for the nautical cowboy”
“Put on that KTTN”
“In the National Museum of the American Indian”
“Creation Story Blues”
“First Date”
“Song for the black cat outside my mother’s apartment”

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The moon rocks darken into pine, pine into slickrock, and the whole world remembers what it once was — grand ocean: sun, plankton, pearl, blood, ancestor, cloud."

It has been a while since I've read a poetry collection let alone one as moving as this one. Drake takes the reader through the beauty and grief of this country, her country, which looks much different than what some of us might be used to. That only adds to how compelling this collection is. I've been following Kinsale Drake for several years on Instagram (as well as TikTok before deleting my account) and I am a huge fan of all her work, especially with the NDN Girl's Book Club. This year more than ever we should amplify and support the voices of those Indigenous in this country, a country that some insane man is trying to claim is his. If you haven't figured it out yet, I highly recommend this.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about identity, the American Southwest, being an indigenous person, and origin stories.

from Your Return: "You / never said I love / you after we fought / like this. But in / my dreams, we / cry at the table / afterwards, / and it is almost / like surfacing / together / I wake up / gasping"

from after Sacred Water (Our Emergence): "what do you call ancestral homestead/stopped / like a kitchen sink/ the water/ of your people / redirected to ranches/ fatten cattle that render the san juan undrinkable/ quench the white men/ in bars/ that don't admit NDNs/ water / and mineral/ packed into bombshells/ how do you drown / in your own artery"

from Pus on that KTNN: "All contradictions // find a home in the body, the insect-skin / of the car sluicing the Arizona desert / as the cicadas pick up their grand // instruments."

[Sarah Spaulding Avento · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I like this little volume, it didn’t do much for me. I think she’s telling stories that need to be told, but the writing itself doesn’t really stand out to me, and there’s nothing new, or daring, or experimental to set it apart from the rest of the canon. As a debut, it’s working, but I hope future books will take more risks.

My favorites:
“everything is weird in the NE…”
“Sound of under-water” : reminds me of some of my own work
“after Sacred Water II & IV”
“Creation Story Blues”
“Ancestor’s wildest dreams”

[rae fraser · Rating 5 out of 5]

need to re-read this, read it when it first came out. kinsale is one of probably the most inspiring people I have witnessed I have been a fan since her yale 70 questions video LOL. she is an incredibly poet and she is honest and human and just fucking fierce. she makes me excited to be existing in the same world as her and I can’t wait to see where life takes her. excited to read more of her world forever and always!!Q

[Avery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written, I was definitely more partial to some of the styles than others. This felt a little like reading directly out of someone’s journal, I’m curious what the experience would be like to hear some read aloud. A little more verse than I usually lean toward with poetry but that’s a very personal taste. There’s definitely some gems in here. Probably would not come back to very many of these, however.

[Zach Castinado · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of poems from a brilliant and young poet, striving to share more of her personal and historical history. I really enjoyed this book of poems, with all the highs and lows that are simply put into a lovely collection of words. My favorite thing is taking on the perspective of other people and this does a wonderful job at exactly that.

[Lisa Stice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful collection of poems that speaks of self, family, place, culture, social issues...
I also love that Drake is a literary activist who fights the good fight as the founder/director of the NDN Girls Book Club.

[Tommey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book brought me immense joy. Through her words, I saw myself reflected and felt the magic of the Southwest come alive. Her description of “our language full of light” captured the essence of something deeply familiar yet beautifully profound.

[Kaitlyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection full of atmosphere and lyrical charm. My favorite was the closing poem ‘Blacklist Me’ as it holds such a collective sentiment for Indigenous people but also for the entirety of this collection.

[Jeffrey Caliedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection I'll keep coming back to. What a joy it is to know Kinsale. Each poem is its own gut punch.

Some of my favorites: "Creation Story Blues", "Notebook" , and"Song for the black cat outside my mother's apartment"