Horses: Poems

by Jake Skeets

Navajo Nation Poet Laureate Jake Skeets’s highly anticipated second collection patiently tracks the impacts of climate change on the land and its myriad inhabitants.

With Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, Skeets emerged as a visionary new literary voice, offering readers a queer, Indigenous poetics inextricable from a connection to land. With Horses, Skeets tracks the shifting land of the Navajo Nation—what changes, and what stays the same, in a place that has been inhabited for thousands of years?

Arranged as a quartet, this collection begins with a meditation on apocalypse. In 2018, nearly two hundred feral horses were found mired in mud that had once been a stock pond near Northern Arizona—a source of life had become a death trap for a herd living on the edge of survival. From here, poems radiate outward, tracing the body and its relationship to a landscape marked by geologic time in order to situate the fragile, eroding moment of the present. “Dust storms lope at the sprig / and spur of low hills,” he writes, witnessing the formation and destruction of the land as it changes alongside the creatures who depend on one another for stability and hummingbirds, horse grass, humans.

In poems composed using numbers important to Diné thought and lifeway, Horses evokes both the end of a world and a new dawn emerging on the horizon—hope, complicated and held close.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction

152 pages, Paperback

Published March 24, 2026

About the author

Jake Skeets (Diné) is from the Navajo Nation. His work has appeared in Word Riot, Connotation Press, The Blueshift Journal, and elsewhere. Recently, he founded Cloudthroat, an online publication of Indigenous art and poetics.

Reviews

[abi keber · Rating 5 out of 5]

We might be so back

I love literature!! I love words!! I love poetry that is just slightly over my head but makes me feeeeeeel things

I haven’t touched a book in months (thanks, school). Picked this up bc the cover was pretty and I needed a quick win and then it reminded me that I am alive and life is beautiful

Putting this next Open Throat on the ‘books I will read this one million times’ shelf

[Aarik Danielsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skeets is our modern king. A new Mary Oliver from the Navajo Nation. No one writes nature and weather and what they mean like him.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Primarily focused on nature and the land, Skeets constructs such evocative and compelling imagery in his poems-- you can see the light, feel the wind, and breathe the air in his writing. Much of Horses is a response to how climate change has effected -- and many ways devastated -- the desert ecology within Navajo Nation. Woven into the collection are moments of eros and yearning that tie into the nature around our own nature of want for connection.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

All of the poems definitely went over my head. I really liked reading the authors note at the end though, which gave this collection a lot of context.

[Sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, I want to thank Milkweed for an advanced readers copy of this collection.

I’d do a 3.5 if possible.

I must say - I highly recommend reading some of the notes first! I went back and re-read many poems after learning more about them, which really increased my understanding of the poems.

Overall, some of these were hard for me to grasp - some of the poems are the types of poems that make poetry feel out of reach… meaning they went over my head. (Sounds like a me problem, not a Jake Skeets problem). I do want to mention that I did dog ear a few poems that I did find to be impactful for even my poetry challenged self. Those include: Ghost Lake, After Dark, A Walk in Tsaile, Soft Thunder, America, Surface Mapping, and Field Song.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading HORSES by Jake Skeets! I was immediately eager to read this poetry collection when I saw it was blurbed by one of my fave poets Billy-Ray Belcourt. He described this book as a stunning achievement and I agree. I loved how these poems related to the land which was evident from the dedication at the beginning: “for the land”. I really enjoyed the intentional forms of these poems including a found poem, a sestina and the deliberate use of blank space like in the poem Ghost Lake. So many of my fave lines included repetitive sounds like in this line: “deer deep in the sleep of my chest”. Two of my fave poems in this collection are On Rain or Light or Joy which also features repetition and Daybreak which introduced me to Diné words and starts with beautiful descriptive nature imagery. I loved one of the closing lines “I am nothing but wind.” which reinforces that connection to the land. I really appreciated the author’s notes at the end that provided insightful context to these poems. I’ve been loving reading more poetry this year and this is one of my fave collections of 2026!

Thank you to Milkweed Editions and McClelland & Stewart via NetGalley for my gifted review copies!

[Dol Leander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recieved as an ARC from the publisher. Opening with the death of almost 200 horses, this collection doesn’t pull any punches. Skeets explores the beauty of living in the Navajo Nation without ignoring the grief. The tragedy is even made an active participant in the pleasures that are still found. He finds a way to reflect these things in the layout of the text and use of punctuation as well, demonstrating an impressive understanding of poetry both as a visual and oral tradition. Everything is purposeful and heartfelt. An important read for everyone, these poems are a striking meditation on the end of the world as we know it and the creation of a new one in the process.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt myself yearning for a complete sentence and then exhaling when they arrived. This really, really worked in some places and sent me skimming in others. I will say there are some absolute banger one-liners in here and absolutely gorgeous imagery about the natural world.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing makes me happier than a new collection of poetry that blows my mind. READ THE NOTES SECTION of this collection.

Really takes his work to another level here. These poems are loved and crafted with care.

[Julia McCall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Felt every word

[Raino Isto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somber and heartfelt considerations of nature and identity. Really good rhythm. My favorite line: “For now, go out and dream of joy, we know the labor of feeling it”

[Vic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nebulous