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Injun
Award-winning Nisga’a poet Jordan Abel’s third collection, Injun, is a long poem about racism and the representation of Indigenous peoples. Composed of text found in western novels published between 1840 and 1950 – the heyday of pulp publishing and a period of unfettered colonialism in North America – Injun then uses erasure, pastiche, and a focused poetics to create a visually striking response to the western genre.
After compiling the online text of 91 of these now public-domain novels into one gargantuan document, Abel used his word processor’s “Find” function to search for the word “injun.” The 509 results were used as a study in context: How was this word deployed? What surrounded it? What was left over once that word was removed? Abel then cut up the sentences into clusters of three to five words and rearranged them into the long poem that is Injun. The book contains the poem as well as peripheral material that will help the reader to replicate, intuitively, some of the conceptual processes that went into composing the poem.
Though it has been phased out of use in our “post-racial” society, the word “injun” is peppered throughout pulp western novels. Injun retraces, defaces, and effaces the use of this word as a colonial and racial marker. While the subject matter of the source text is clearly problematic, the textual explorations in Injun help to destabilize the colonial image of the “Indian” in the source novels, the western genre as a whole, and the western canon.
After compiling the online text of 91 of these now public-domain novels into one gargantuan document, Abel used his word processor’s “Find” function to search for the word “injun.” The 509 results were used as a study in context: How was this word deployed? What surrounded it? What was left over once that word was removed? Abel then cut up the sentences into clusters of three to five words and rearranged them into the long poem that is Injun. The book contains the poem as well as peripheral material that will help the reader to replicate, intuitively, some of the conceptual processes that went into composing the poem.
Though it has been phased out of use in our “post-racial” society, the word “injun” is peppered throughout pulp western novels. Injun retraces, defaces, and effaces the use of this word as a colonial and racial marker. While the subject matter of the source text is clearly problematic, the textual explorations in Injun help to destabilize the colonial image of the “Indian” in the source novels, the western genre as a whole, and the western canon.
83 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
October 29, 2017
For anyone anticipating conventional verse, that expectation is quickly undone in the inventive exercise to reclaim a dehumanizing and insulting slur and undermine a mythology that still has a hold on western America. Important and experimentally powerful. My full review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2017/10/28/la...
April 2, 2018
Conceptual poetry just really isn't my thing...but this is a cool idea
November 10, 2017
Reading a very astute review on Rough Ghosts helped me appreciate this: https://roughghosts.com/2017/10/28/la...
I liked the way the first section becomes more and more fragmented, then comes back together. I liked the repetition in the second section. I liked the methodology Abel used. A very quick read, but one you could go back to again and again.
I liked the way the first section becomes more and more fragmented, then comes back together. I liked the repetition in the second section. I liked the methodology Abel used. A very quick read, but one you could go back to again and again.
June 4, 2024
This is such a cool concept and even cooler collection. Damn.
November 25, 2019
the style choices in this book make everything hit really hard
fave poem: probably a)
fave line: "carries / us unwavering / into the sledge / hammer dawn"
fave poem: probably a)
fave line: "carries / us unwavering / into the sledge / hammer dawn"
July 2, 2017
I admit I struggled with this. Fortunately, before beginning I found Jordan Abel's page, "Process," on which he offered some explanation. Injun is a volume of poetry made of cutouts. Abel used as his source text 91 public domain western novels. His search, with CTRL+F, for the word "injun" gave him 509 results which filled 26 printed pages. He cut and arranged the pieces into the 26 poems which make up his "Injun." It's followed by a section of "Notes," and that by an "Appendix." The "Injun" section is the most accessible, where his plan and meaning is most plainly shown in phrases displaying racism and injustice and colonialist attitudes. The 2 final sections were harder to understand, and their disjointed character made less music.
The book was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize this year and I heard Abel read from it on 7 Jun. His reading was as experimentally difficult as his text. He broadcast his reading somehow from a computer in an act of performance art. It began normally but then began to be more than one line or one poem read together and overlapping. Increasingly added lines and poems ran together to make a cacophony of echoed phrases merging into an incomprehensible babble of sounds and a wall of indistinguishable words. It helps to know that Abel is of the Nisga'a peoples from British Columbia and that he's a PhD candidate researching digital humanities and indigenous literary studies.
His book Injun won the Griffin Poetry Prize as the most outstanding volume of Canadian poetry of the year.
The book was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize this year and I heard Abel read from it on 7 Jun. His reading was as experimentally difficult as his text. He broadcast his reading somehow from a computer in an act of performance art. It began normally but then began to be more than one line or one poem read together and overlapping. Increasingly added lines and poems ran together to make a cacophony of echoed phrases merging into an incomprehensible babble of sounds and a wall of indistinguishable words. It helps to know that Abel is of the Nisga'a peoples from British Columbia and that he's a PhD candidate researching digital humanities and indigenous literary studies.
His book Injun won the Griffin Poetry Prize as the most outstanding volume of Canadian poetry of the year.
February 4, 2018
Any time you get a sneer from an old lady in a cafe when you literally turn your book upside to read is a win in my books.
This project is just so fleshed out and realized and jagged and cutting in the way it susses thru the found-language to reveal relationships and question meaning (e.g., 'reserve,' always in use as a measurement of some cowboy's will to succeed, how totally divorced that is from my own experience hearing that word).
It's really heartening to see a dubious prize like he Griffin go to something that is so conceptually gripping and well produced. These passages would be difficult to unhear, and that INJUN makes so obvious/gripping/lasting these questions/hurts/reclamations thru language is a testament to how good this poetry really is.
This is required reading for like, everyone.
This project is just so fleshed out and realized and jagged and cutting in the way it susses thru the found-language to reveal relationships and question meaning (e.g., 'reserve,' always in use as a measurement of some cowboy's will to succeed, how totally divorced that is from my own experience hearing that word).
It's really heartening to see a dubious prize like he Griffin go to something that is so conceptually gripping and well produced. These passages would be difficult to unhear, and that INJUN makes so obvious/gripping/lasting these questions/hurts/reclamations thru language is a testament to how good this poetry really is.
This is required reading for like, everyone.
March 16, 2022
2.75
It is a very interesting concept the only thing is that conceptual poetry is just not my thing at all. I took this book to be more of an art piece than poetry and read it as visual art more than I did as a book so that was pretty different as well.
If you're into conceptual poetry then this is a very powerful concept.
It is a very interesting concept the only thing is that conceptual poetry is just not my thing at all. I took this book to be more of an art piece than poetry and read it as visual art more than I did as a book so that was pretty different as well.
If you're into conceptual poetry then this is a very powerful concept.
July 1, 2017
Clever. Recommended for anyone interested in Indigenous anti-colonialist poetry or digital humanities/corpus linguistics.
April 16, 2018
This book is brilliant. Abel uses out of copyright Western novels as source material to deconstruct the language and ideologies of colonialism. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. So much to chew on in this work. I want to go back to graduate school so I can write an essay about it?!
There are three sections that intervene with the texts in different ways to show the racism or turn the language on its head to use as a weapon against the white gaze. The first uses sections of the books to create found poetry. The words fragment and move apart, before they turn upside down. The second section centers words within different texts so you can understand how words like Injun or reserve or gold or country were used to construct and reify colonial power structures. Yes! Yes! Yes! Finally, the third section is a collage of sentences where the word Injun is removed.
It is a book that shows how nation and country were founded on acts of actual violence and the violence of words. Abel takes back the words of the colonizer and makes them his own - deploying them against racism and oppression by deconstructing them, holding them up as a mirror, and finally taking the word away. Abel has taken the words back, and made them his own.
I will read anything this man writes. You should too.
There are three sections that intervene with the texts in different ways to show the racism or turn the language on its head to use as a weapon against the white gaze. The first uses sections of the books to create found poetry. The words fragment and move apart, before they turn upside down. The second section centers words within different texts so you can understand how words like Injun or reserve or gold or country were used to construct and reify colonial power structures. Yes! Yes! Yes! Finally, the third section is a collage of sentences where the word Injun is removed.
It is a book that shows how nation and country were founded on acts of actual violence and the violence of words. Abel takes back the words of the colonizer and makes them his own - deploying them against racism and oppression by deconstructing them, holding them up as a mirror, and finally taking the word away. Abel has taken the words back, and made them his own.
I will read anything this man writes. You should too.
January 28, 2022
"It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected" -Mark Twain
I feel as though I am not the intended audience for this book, so I feel bad giving this book the rating that I did. I will say that I greatly admire his process and how difficult it must have been, it takes a true artist to have that amount of patience. However, I am not a poetry fan in the slightest, so I did not enjoy this book. The broken lines and stanzas of repetitive words made no sense to me, I honestly did not gain anything from this book.
I feel as though I am not the intended audience for this book, so I feel bad giving this book the rating that I did. I will say that I greatly admire his process and how difficult it must have been, it takes a true artist to have that amount of patience. However, I am not a poetry fan in the slightest, so I did not enjoy this book. The broken lines and stanzas of repetitive words made no sense to me, I honestly did not gain anything from this book.
December 10, 2022
(Edited) Takes patience and careful consideration to fully interpret. But when you are able to do so, it’s incredibly powerful.
Also just wrote a 6 page essay on this collection of poems and literally nothing else so if I don’t understand it at this point, I don’t know what to say.
Also just wrote a 6 page essay on this collection of poems and literally nothing else so if I don’t understand it at this point, I don’t know what to say.
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February 16, 2019How this was created and the idea behind it are amazing. I don't really know how to rate the finished product though. It is almost like the idea and creation are what is more fascinating? This is something so different I feel out of my element. Check it out and see what you think.
October 1, 2021
Conceptual and fascinating. The process is as important as the finished text. Maybe more so. Not a straightforward read but a rewarding one that makes you think.
November 9, 2017
When I heard about Injun, a found poem comprised of words and lines taken from public domain western novels that used the word "injun", I was definitely intrigued. The book itself kept me intrigued all the way through.
While I don't normally prefer the style of poetry used here, I found that Injun had far too many important things to say to let that get in the way. The poem itself is incredible. It made me cringe, but in the sense that the subject matter is appalling. It is incredibly well put together. The notes at the end really added a lot to it. The information about how Abel put the poem together was interesting.
I definitely would recommend this. It's unlike anything else I have read, and it made a powerful statement. I have never been more uncomfortable with westerns as a whole as I am after reading this poem.
While I don't normally prefer the style of poetry used here, I found that Injun had far too many important things to say to let that get in the way. The poem itself is incredible. It made me cringe, but in the sense that the subject matter is appalling. It is incredibly well put together. The notes at the end really added a lot to it. The information about how Abel put the poem together was interesting.
I definitely would recommend this. It's unlike anything else I have read, and it made a powerful statement. I have never been more uncomfortable with westerns as a whole as I am after reading this poem.
October 10, 2017
Stronger, at many points, in what it doesn't say than what it does, but for those willing to think in terms of contexts and language - historically, over time, how they translate currently - it's highly thought-provoking. Recalls Elif Batuman's New Yorker article discussing the normalcy of racism in novels deemed classics, and the need to question and rework the assumptions ingrained in the text and made about the present. In this work, Abel has done just that, both by creating the scenes of his reality and drawing attention in his format to those that are pervasive, harmful, and have a long legacy. Seeing these starting points is good practice for dismantling ideas about ownership, violence, and power, as well as what makes sense, what is right, and what we should accept.
May 25, 2017
I like the concept of this book a lot. The author took sentences from several works that have the word Injun in them. Every piece in this book is made up of those sentences. I especially like the ones that line up a specific word, (i.e. reserve, silence, whitest). However, some of the poetry is a bit of a stretch for the concept. For example, there are some poems that use one letter from the line of text, so that the author can make the word he wants. To me, this makes it not quite as ingenious as I first thought when it was recommended to me, but at the same time, I really enjoyed reading the work. It was interesting and a great conversation piece.
January 26, 2016
This guy is sooooo badass. Here he mined 91 Western novels on Project Gutenberg for sentences containing the word "Injun." Out of 502 sentences, he cut up 26 fragments (for letters of the alphabet) and assembled them into poems...which slowly disintegrate over the course of the book.
September 6, 2017
I would have hated this if I hadn't discussed it with my book club. Hard solo read, great group read.
January 21, 2022
Injun is divided into different forms, each of which explore identity, colonialism, and how the two are at odds in the literature of an oppressed person in a colonized/occupied territory. Many of the poems are constructing from other texts... or should I say de-constructed?
* * *
* * *
he played injun in gods country
where boys proved themselves clean
dumb beasts who could cut fire
out of the whitest sand
he played english across the trail
where girls turned plum wild
garlic and strained words
through the window of night
he spoke through numb lips and
breathed frontier- pg. 3
* * *
th e d ay ki cks up
lik e a pa ck of wo lves
o n the c ut
bu zza rds
ar e fin e b irds
th at a re fo ol ed
b y m y re dsk in
sc ent
no k een spir it ed
wh ite fl esh
sh ak ing tr ails
i n the w alk lig ht
no le ve led ri fle
i n t he w oods
wh ere i sl ept
al ong tow ards
th e d ay- pg. 23
* * *
on, then fear. In the quick ensuing silence Miss Longstreth rose white
nger," replied Duane. A significant silence ensued. "I charge Snecker w
with a cough that broke the spell of silence, shuffled a couple of steps to
in his cold, ringing speech. In the silence, both outside and inside the
way you'll let us." There was a long silence. "Well, you look a little like
with warning hand commanding silence, Duane stepped softly forwa
He sank down, controlled himself, silenced a mounting exultation, the
and evil deeds. There was absolute silence. The outlaws were lined bac
A-huh!" exclaimed Snake, in relief. Silence ensued then for a moment,- pg. 37
February 3, 2022
a "conceptual" piece, poetic scholarship:
from the bio on the last page, Jordan Abel's "research concentrates on the intersection between digital humanities and indigenous literary studies."
Injun reconstructs verse, from the sentences of westerns in the public domain containing the word "injun," sequenced from A to Z
the poems maintain syntactical wholeness at first, or they at least read like conventional poetry: subjects acting upon object, with Defamiliarization skewing senses, scenarios and characteristics, little vivacious and mmm melancholy? encounters
at G spaces begin to stretch words from each other (_____injuns in a heap/spring _____ boiled over)
at M spaces break apart letters (dragged across the s____ky)
at P the poems have splattered across the page. but maintain some legibility
at R the dregs, letters like stars, start to appear upside down on the page,
a tendency which continues until Z, which resolves back into like syntactical coherence while maintaining some various shapes
the method reminds me of William Burroughs' attempts to like hack language, to implode communication in a fun way
the communication here is canonical imperializing, deconstructed and appropriated into at some times something like a synesthetic Georgics, and at others concrete poetry at its most abstract/non-figurative
not the kind of work delivering round characters overcoming trial,, per se,, but the Concept and bewildering juxtapositions are quite stimulating, which is exactly what I wanted
from the bio on the last page, Jordan Abel's "research concentrates on the intersection between digital humanities and indigenous literary studies."
Injun reconstructs verse, from the sentences of westerns in the public domain containing the word "injun," sequenced from A to Z
the poems maintain syntactical wholeness at first, or they at least read like conventional poetry: subjects acting upon object, with Defamiliarization skewing senses, scenarios and characteristics, little vivacious and mmm melancholy? encounters
at G spaces begin to stretch words from each other (_____injuns in a heap/spring _____ boiled over)
at M spaces break apart letters (dragged across the s____ky)
at P the poems have splattered across the page. but maintain some legibility
at R the dregs, letters like stars, start to appear upside down on the page,
a tendency which continues until Z, which resolves back into like syntactical coherence while maintaining some various shapes
the method reminds me of William Burroughs' attempts to like hack language, to implode communication in a fun way
the communication here is canonical imperializing, deconstructed and appropriated into at some times something like a synesthetic Georgics, and at others concrete poetry at its most abstract/non-figurative
not the kind of work delivering round characters overcoming trial,, per se,, but the Concept and bewildering juxtapositions are quite stimulating, which is exactly what I wanted
February 24, 2021
This rating is not really based on the intrinsic quality of the book as much as on my personal experience with it. On my first read, I feel a little lost and unsettled, but I think that is precisely the point. Abel is appropriating the settler colonial language of 20th century western novels to write a new narrative about indigeneity, and that's incredibly meaningful work. I think there's much to dissect here, but it is a little hard for me to digest and dissect as a settler reader. My open question is this: as a settler reader, how do I engage with indigenous history, art, and literature in a way that is considerate as well as productive in seeking (environmental/indigenous) justice and decolonization?
December 13, 2021
I love the concept and process. I wish I could have had a conversation about each poem (especially the more physically more difficult to read) to help grasp a better sense of why the author not only “wrote”/compiled it but included it and what he was trying to say/comment on. Some of it is obvious, but so much of it I truly didn’t get, and wish that I could hear about what he was or is still thinking about each piece.
February 27, 2018
Brilliant, visually-striking, and incredibly creative. Abel is a master at exploring what both identity and colonialism mean for an oppressed individual in a colonized territory. The collection is short, potent, and certainly important. (Not to mention the form is sick as!) Definitely worth the read.
August 23, 2023
Interesting approach, experimental and bold, makes a statement. Many strong poems created from Abel's unique techniques. Conceptually strong albeit not my preferred area of poetry. This aligns well with conceptual art. New approaches to deconstruct colonial texts and to destruct a racist system from the inside out. Good.
February 15, 2018
The idea behind this work is fascinating. Even though I cannot really explain it, nor can I say that I really enjoyed reading this, it was an important project, that has truly given me a different insight in the power of words.
February 27, 2018
A highly original, complex, cinematic collection. This book is such a crucial read but it's also super readable. It explores complex dynamics of power in a colonial world, but always remains negating throughout. I powered through this kick ass collection. A must read.
October 9, 2017
I liked the concept of this book and the political nature of this book of poetry, but I didn't actually enjoy reading it.
September 27, 2019
Deconstructionist westerns >>> revisionist westerns
September 11, 2021
WOW. This is the most skillful blend of form and content that I’ve ever read in language poetry. Truly a beautiful feat.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews