New Poets of Native Nations

by Heid E. Erdrich (Editor), Tacey M. Atsitty (Contributor), Layli Long Soldier (Contributor)

An anthology celebrating twenty-one Native poets first published in the twenty-first century

New Poets of Native Nations gathers poets of diverse ages, styles, languages, and tribal affiliations to present the extraordinary range and power of new Native poetry. Heid E. Erdrich has selected twenty-one poets whose first books were published after the year 2000 to highlight the exciting works coming up after Joy Harjo and Sherman Alexie. Collected here are poems of great breadth―long narratives, political outcries, experimental works, and traditional lyrics―and the result is an essential anthology of some of the best poets writing now.

Poets included are Tacey M. Atsitty, Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Laura Da’, Natalie Diaz, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Eric Gansworth, Gordon Henry, Jr., Sy Hoahwah, LeAnne Howe, Layli Long Soldier, Janet McAdams, Brandy Nalani McDougall, Margaret Noodin, dg okpik, Craig Santos Perez, Tommy Pico, Cedar Sigo, M. L. Smoker, Gwen Westerman, and Karenne Wood.

Genres: Poetry, Indigenous, Anthologies, Native American, Nonfiction, Contemporary, 21st Century

284 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2018

About the author

Heid E. Erdrich writes and publishes poetry and non-fiction. Her NEW book of poems, Cell Traffic, a new and selected from University of Arizona Press, IS NOW AVAILABLE. Please consider buying it from www.birchbarkbooks.com

Heid's most recent book of poems, National Monuments from Michigan State University Press, won the 2009 Minnesota Book Award. Heid Erdrich teaches writing workshops, often as a guest at various colleges and universities. Each year she leads the Turtle Mountain Writers Workshop on her home reservation in North Dakota. Heid also works with American Indian visual artists as a curator and arts advocate. Author of the play "Curiosities," she collaborates broadly on multi-discilinary performances of other artists as well.

Founder of Wiigwaas Press, along with her sister Louise Erdrich and poet James Cihlar, Heid continues to publish Ojibwe language books in an effort to assist in indigenous language revitalization work.

Reviews

[Spencer Orey · Rating 4 out of 5]

These collections are always such a mix. I liked a lot of the poems and thought there were some great connections between the different poems and poets. That said, the poems here are heavy and mostly pretty dour, and I had expected more of a range of tone. I guess don't expect to laugh much when reading these. But there are great treasures scattered in there. And it was cool to find out about so many poets

[Vic Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

"New Poets of Native Nations" only got three stars mostly because of me. Much of the work here was simply beyond me. I read some of these poems repeatedly, spending a good deal of time with them and I still couldn't make heads nor tails of some of them. I put that down to my lack of experience with poetry (something I'm trying to remedy).

Those I did get something from I enjoyed quite a bit. There was more humor here than I really expected. Likewise, very few poems about nature. Most were about lives in the modern world and being what one poet called "NDN." Pain, sorrow, anger, lose, family, hope, love, and sense of place seemed dominant themes.

Within this collection poets play with form as well as with words. These experiments were a lot of fun for me. It's surprising how much impact the form has on our understanding. Layli Long Soldier's "Whereas Re-solution's An Act" with its dual column structure is an outstanding example of such a physical restructuring and its impact. The poems meanings and references change depending on how you tackle its unique structure.

Overall, I'd recommend this anthology to anyone who enjoys poetry at all with the caveat that it may be a pretty steep climb for those of us without a lot of experience with the art form.

[Bri Little · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book holds an impressively vast selection of Native poetry. Absolutely gorgeous writing. Poets whose work really stood out to me are Tommy Pico, Karenne Wood, Cedar Sigo, and Janet McAdams.

[Adam Brodnax · Rating 5 out of 5]

in the most equitable fashion, this collection of native poems bring forth so many diverse narratives in such raw unfiltered writing

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nimbawaadaan akiing
I dream a world
atemagag biinaagami
of clean water
gete-mitigoog
ancient trees
gaye gwekaanimad
and changing winds.
Nimbawaadaan akiing
I dream a world
izhi-mikwendamang
of ones who remember
nandagikenindamang gaye
who seek the truth and
maamwidebwe’endamang waabang
believe in tomorrow together.

GWEN NELL WESTERMAN
Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate and Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma

Another set of beautiful poems from modern Indigenous poets ranging far and wide, and each poet touches on themes that you expect, and more that you can’t, because you weren’t raised/taught to think differently, so you learn something in every poem. I can’t stress that enough and it is why I am reading so much indigenous literature lately; it is necessary to continue to learn and grow to be able to transcend the way you have learned and grown to get here. Here are some keys to that new, wider, brighter, deeper knowledge.

TACEY M ATSITTY
Diné, is Tsénahabiłnii (Sleep Rock People) and born for Ta’neeszahnii (Tangle People)
NIGHTSONG
…
In this falling
Moment, cities
Sink into the depths,

Drown. The earth
Face carried up and

Away in the current of
A whirlwind, where water

And mountains hide
In deep blue. What faces

Bring: a reservoir filled,
Following the night

When day fell into day,
Soon followed by night

Into night to night
Thrice with no moon

Thrice with no flame-
Kept in the thick thick.

ELEGY FOR YUCCA FRUIT WOMAN

Without me, she said. Go-
I’m going to the rock
That once had wings. My life
Rolls like rock clods
Down a volcanic throat, circling
The tips of big winds beneath.

To take air,
Those inward whooshes as if blessing
Oneself…

DOWNPOUR

I asked him down here
…
Where we wait for deluge, but it never comes
…
I can’t sing over the onrush of falling water
…
Lick cloudburst, the way I want
…
Down here, I speak with a tongue of cedar: bark and kindle
…
He says rain and I go beautifully together

LAYLI LONG SOLDIER
OGLALA LAKOTA

OBLIGATIONS 2
As we

embrace resist

the future the present the past

we work we struggle we begin we fail

to understand to find to unbraid to accept to question

the grief the grief the grief the grief

we shift we wield we bury

into light as ash

across our faces


WHEREAS I DID NOT DESIRE
WHEREAS I did not desire in childhood to be a part of this
but desired most of all to be a part. A piece combined with
others to make up a whole. Some but not all of something.
In Lakota it’s onspa, a piece or part of anything. Like the
creek trickling behind my aunt’s house where Uncle built her
a bridge to cross from bank to bank … I
walk out remembering that for millennia we have called
ourselves Lakota meaning friend or ally. This relationship
to the other. Some but not all, still our piece to everything.

When I

was young grew older

I learned from I taught I relied on

my mother my father my children my grandchildren

how reasons where to whom always

to speak to speak to speak to speak

truthfully carefully meaningfully

digging stones threading grasses

from our chests

MARGARET NOODIN (Giiwedinoodin)
Lake Superior Chippewa, Grand Portage Band
Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin)language
William Making Snowshoes
Ojibwe Version

Winiiam Aagimeke
Ge-maajimamaangadepon
giizis ishpaagoozid, ishpaagonagaag
agwajiing
mii dash inaaginang ezhi-inendang
naagadawendang debwemigag
gaye gaawiin debwesiinog
Skadi'an gaye Bakewizian
naagadawenimaad
ezhi-giibabaamaagimenid.
Chiwenipanad onji-gii aagimiked
miigwechwi'aad aagimakoon
waazhaabiid miidash waaginaang,
aazheyaajimowinan gashka'oodeg
gaa nisidotamang inkamigag
gete-aadizookaanag gashka'oozowaad
ezhi-gizhemanidoo naago'idizod.
Apii gii giizhiitaad anokiid gaye
bengoziwaad
giizikaang makazinan mii
biizikawaad agimag
mii bineshiinhgaazod
ji-babaamikawed
jiimaanbii'ang bagakaagonagaa
epiichi baazhida'ang ziibiwan
jiimaanbii'aad maazikaamikwe
gaye ode'eng zhawenimaad.

ENGLISH version:
As frozen flakes fell in clusters
sun high in the sky, snow deep
outside
he began to bend his thoughts
considering what is true
and what is not
considering Skadi and
Pukwiss
and the way they walked on the snow.
Because it was simplest, he made snowshoes
thanked the white ash
cut the laces and bent the wood,
all the back stories tangling
what we understand happened
all the teaching tales tangling
the way the Creator is revealed.
When his work was done and they
were dry
he took off his moccasins, put on
the snowshoes
going out to leave tracks light
as a bird
writing canoe shapes in the bright snow
as he walked over rivers
writing kiss shapes on the earth
and in the center of the blessed.

WHAT THE PEEPERS SAY
after the winter waiting
no longer half-
frozen by design
our calling becomes all calling.

under the rippling bark
peepers have thawed
to crawl into the swamp where
my calling becomes your calling.

a seismic seiche
a synaptic snowstorms
of springtime repetition and
your calling becomes my calling.

as we drift away on our echoes
we are the details
we are the distance and
all calling becomes our calling.

Nimbawaadaan Akiing / I Dream a World
Nimbawaadaan akiing
I dream a world
atemagag biinaagami
of clean water
gete-mitigoog
ancient trees
gaye gwekaanimad
and changing winds.
Nimbawaadaan akiing
I dream a world
izhi-mikwendamang
of ones who remember
nandagikenindamang gaye
who seek the truth and
maamwidebwe’endamang waabang
believe in tomorrow together.
Nimbawaadaan akiing
I dream a world
izhi-biimiskobideg giizhigong
where our path in the sky
waabandamang naasaab
can be seen as clearly as
gaa-izhi-niibawid wiijibemaadizid
the place where our neighbor once stood.
GWEN NELL WESTERMAN
Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate and Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma

GENETIC CODE
On the edge of a dream,
the songs came.
condensed from the fog,
like dewdrops on cattails,
they formed perfectly clear.
Whispering through leaves,
heavy voices rise up.
drift beyond night
toward the silent dawn,
and sing.
Heyta ehanna ded untipi
Heun he ohinni unkiksuyapi
Anpetu dena ded untipi
Heca ohinn undowanpi kte.
Always on still morning air,
they come,
connected by
memories and
song.

JENNIFER ELISE FOERSTER
Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma

LEAVING TULSA
Grandma potted a cedar sapling
I could take on the road for luck.
She used the bark for heart lesions
doctors couldn’t explain.
To her, they were maps, traces of home,
the Milky Way, where she’s going, she said.
…
up here, parallel to the median
with a vista of mesas’ weavings,
the sky a belt of blue and white beadwork,
I see our hundred and sixty acres
stamped on God’s forsaken country.

BIRTHMARK

Homeland? on my ankle: claw
or fin. Mud? No. I was born with it.
A bit of dirt and I stole it back.
…
you will never know Grief. Deep,
as if grief were some

body of water. I begin. to teach myself
to swim. Inside a continent.
…
I travel often without a map.
found a garden inside of a wall
made of river stones.
…
What is your language?
Nouns doing something to something

else. Verb: what you contain
between them. A place

to pass through until I forget
I had the map of that place
to begin with. born with it,
a stain on the skin. a garden

always flowering,
petals dropping. with them
I go down rapids.

CHIMERA

I have traveled this continent
for no other reason but to search
for evidence of your existence.

In the stars, America, your highway
vanishes. Black moths are captured
in headlights and swallowed.
In the beginning, you had said,
we were cracked against the sky.
Now I read the highway
for the fall-out of your name
as you step again into the passing land,
turn to the illuminated crest of hill
where a line of traffic outlines the dark-

in your silhouette I can still see myself
as a child, waiting for a car
to swerve around the corner.

But no car came that afternoon.
I stood there in the patient street,
my summer dress rippling.

dg nanouk okpik
Inupiaq-Inuit

A YEAR DOT

(qin) dim sum equivalent to: dot, speck heart

stone piled on stone I finished my meal.
in this early sunrise I see shadows where a cairn of rocks
used to stack in the direction of eastern light.
…
Milkweed grows on the side of the road in ditches,
reminiscent of professor’s soft words, amazing the brilliant,
contemplation and thought pattern as you learn, slowly.

In my body neuron-zipped words and more words.
My lexicon building from nothing to something good.
embossed tattoos like small notes on sheet music.
…
to learn, you must be open, diligent, and willing to be an individual.





















NATALIE DIAZ
Mojave, enrolled member of Gila River Indian Community

'THE FIRST WATER IS THE BODY' (AN EXTRACT)

The Colorado River is the most endangered river in the United States—
also, it is a part of my body.

I carry a river. It is who I am: ‘Aha Makav. This is not metaphor.

When a Mojave says, Inyech ‘Aha Makavch ithuum, we are saying our name.
We are telling a story of our existence. The river runs through the middle
of my body.

So far, I have said the word river in every stanza. I don’t want to waste water.
I must preserve the river in my body.

In future stanzas, I will try to be more conservative

+

The Spanish called us, Mojave. Colorado, the name they gave our river be
-cause it was silt-red-thick.

Natives have been called red forever. I have never met a red Native, not
even on my reservation, not even at the National Museum of the American
Indian, not even at the largest powwow in Parker, Arizona.

I live in the desert along a dammed blue river. The only red people I’ve seen
are white tourists sunburned after staying out on the water too long.

=

‘Aha Makav is the true name of our people, given to us by our Creator who
loosed the river from the earth and built it into our living bodies.

Translated into English, ‘Aha Makav means the river runs through the
middle of our body, the same way it runs through the middle of our land.

This is a poor translation, like all translations.
In American minds, the logic of this image will lend itself to surrealism or magical realism—
Americans prefer a magical red Indian, or a shaman, or a fake Indian in a red dress, over a real native. Even a real native carrying the dangerous and heavy blues of a river in her body.
What threatens white people is often dismissed as myth.
I have never been true in America. America is my myth.
~
Derrida says, Every text remains in mourning until it is translated.
When Mojaves say the word for tears, we return to our word for river, as if our river were flowing from our eyes. A great weeping, is how you might translate it. Or, a river of grief.
But who is this translation for? And will they come to my language’s four-night funeral to grieve what has been lost in my efforts at translation? When they have drunk dry my river will they join the mourning procession across our bleached desert?
The word for drought is different across many languages and lands.
The ache of thirst, though, translates to all bodies along the same paths—the tongue and the throat. No matter what language you speak, no matter the color of your skin.
~
We carry the river, its body of water, in our body.
I do not mean to imply a visual relationship. Such as: a native woman on her knees holding a box of Land O’Lakes butter whose label has a picture of a native woman on her knees holding a box of Land O’Lakes butter whose label has a picture of a native woman on her knees . . .
We carry the river, its body of water, in our body. I do not mean to invoke the Droste effect.
I mean river as a verb. A happening. It is moving within me right now.
~
This is not juxtaposition. Body and water are not two unlike things—they are more than close together or side by side. They are same—body, being, energy, prayer, current, motion, medicine.
This knowing comes from acknowledging the human body has more than six senses. The body is beyond six senses. Is sensual. Is always an ecstatic state of energy, is always on the verge of praying, or entering any river of movement.
Energy is a moving like a river moving my moving body.
~
In Mojave thinking, body and land are the same. The words are separated only by letters: ’iimat for body, ’amat for land. In conversation, we often use a shortened form for each: mat-. Unless you know the context of a conversation, you might not know if we are speaking about our body or our land. You might not know which has been injured, which is remembering, which is alive, which was dreamed, which needs care, which has vanished.
If I say, My river is disappearing, do I also mean, My people are disappearing?
~
How can I translate—not in words but in belief—that a river is a body, as alive as you or I, that there can be no life without it?
~
John Berger wrote true translation is not a binary affair between two languages but a triangular affair. The third point of the triangle being what lay behind the words of the original text before it was written. True translation demands a return to the pre-verbal.
Between the English translation I offered, and the urging I felt to first type ’Aha Makav in the lines above, is not the point where this story ends or begins.
We must go to the place before those two points—we must go to the third place that is the river.
We must go to the point of the lance our creator stabbed into the earth, and the first river bursting from that clay body into mine. We must submerge beneath those once warm red waters now channeled-blue and cool, the current’s endless yards of emerald silk wrapping the body and moving it, swift enough to take life or give it.
We must go until we smell the black-root-wet anchoring the river’s mud banks.
~
What is this third point, this place beyond the surface, if not the deep-cut and crooked bone-bed where the Colorado River runs—like a one thousand four hundred and fifty mile thirst—into and through a body?
Berger called it the pre-verbal. Pre-verbal as in the body when the body was more than body. Before it could name itself body and be limited to the space body indicated.
Pre-verbal is the place where the body was yet a green-blue energy greening, greened, and bluing the stone, the floodwaters, the razorback fish, the beetle, and the cottonwoods’ and willows’ shaded shadows.
Pre-verbal was when the body was more than a body and possible.
One of its possibilities was to hold a river within it.
~
A river is a body of water. It has a foot, an elbow, a mouth. It runs. It lies in a bed. It can make you good. It remembers everything.
~
America is a land of bad math and science: the Right believes Rapture will save them from the violence they are delivering upon the earth and water; the Left believes technology, the same technology wrecking the earth and water, will save them from the wreckage or help them build a new world on Mars.
~
If I was created to hold the Colorado River, to carry its rushing inside me, how can I say who I am if the river is gone?
What does ’Aha Makav mean if the river is emptied to the skeleton of its fish and the miniature sand dunes of its dry silten beds?
If the river is a ghost, am I?
Unsoothable thirst is one type of haunting.
~
A phrase popular or more known to non-natives during the Standing Rock encampment was, Water is the first medicine. It is true.
Where I come from we cleanse ourselves in the river. Not like a bath with soap. I mean: the water makes us strong and able to move forward into what is set before us to do with good energy.
We cannot live good, we cannot live at all, without water.
If we poison and use up our water, how will we cleanse ourselves of these sins?
~
To thirst and to drink is how one knows they are alive, and grateful.
To thirst and then not drink is . . .
~
If your builder could place a small red bird in your chest to beat as your heart, is it so hard for you to picture the blue river hurtling inside the slow muscled curves of my long body? Is it too difficult to believe it is as sacred as a breath or a star or a sidewinder or your own mother or your lover?
If I could convince you, would our brown bodies and our blue rivers be more loved and less ruined?
The Whanganui River in New Zealand now has the same legal rights of a human being. In India, the Ganges and Yamuna rivers now have the same legal status of a human being. Slovenia’s constitution now declares access to clean drinking water to be a national human right. While in the US, we are tear-gassing and rubber-bulleting and kenneling natives who are trying to protect their water from pollution and contamination at Standing Rock in North Dakota. We have yet to discover what the effects of lead-contaminated water will be on the children of Flint, Michigan, who have been drinking it for years.
~
We think of our bodies as being all that we are: I am my body. This thinking helps us disrespect water, air, land, one another. But water is not external from our body, our self.
My Elder says: Cut off your ear, and you will live. Cut off your hand, you will live. Cut off your leg, you can still live. Cut off our water: we will not live more than a week.
The water we drink, like the air we breathe, is not a part of our body but is our body. What we do to one—to the body, to the water—we do to the other.
~
Toni Morrison writes, All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Back to the body of earth, of flesh, back to the mouth, the throat, back to the womb, back to the heart, to its blood, back to our grief, back back back to when we were more than we have lately become.
Will we soon remember from where we’ve come? The water.
And once remembered, will we return to that first water, and in doing so return to ourselves, to each other, better and cleaner?
Do you think the water will forget what we have done, what we continue to do?

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poems in this anthology, the most important gathering of Native American poetry in a long time, testify to the truth--obvious if you've been in touch with many indigenous people--that there's no one way to be, or think, or write "native," or to use Tommy Pico's amusing coinage, NDN. Editor Heid E. Erdrich made the decision to limit the collection to poets who published their first volume after 2000, which isn't quite identical with "younger" poets; LeAnn Howe and Gordon Henry have both been publishing fiction for quite a while longer. While there were a few poets who met the criteria I would have liked to have seen included--Orlando White comes to mind--it's an impressive and convincing collection.

Among the central concerns that echo and recur are the resistance to essentialized ideas of identity; the reality of traumas grounded in tribally specific experiences of dispossession; the emerging sense of global indigeneity(ies) reflected in the inclusion of poets from the Arctic, Guam and Hawai'i; and, perhaps most centrally, the drive to (re) establish connections with tribal languages. By my count, ten of the 21 poets incorporate tribal languages into their poetry in ways that go beyond simple allusion.

Erdrich's choice of poems by the half dozen or so poets whose work I know reasonably well were good ones; Lila LongSoldier, dg nano okapik, and Tommy Pico are particularly well represented. If I'd been selecting poems from Natlie Diaz's brilliant collection My Brother Was an Aztec, I would have chosen some of the more searing personal poems, but it would have been difficult to chose ones that work equally well out of the book's context.

There were many poems that caught my attention, but if you want to graze for a sampling, I'd recommend starting with some of these:
Layli Long Soldier, 38, Whereas I Did Not Desire in Childhood
Tommy Pico, from IRL, from Nature Poem
Gwen Nedll Wesaterman, Theory Doesn't Live Here
Jennifer Elise Foerster, Birthmark
Natalie Diaz, Dome Riddle
dg nanok opik, Her/My Arctic Corpse Whale; Dog Moon Night at Noatak
Julian Talamantez Brolaski, As the Owl Augurs; Stonewall to Standing Rock
Sy Hoahwah,, Anchor Screws of Culture; Before We Are Eatern
M.L. Smoker, Crosscurrents; Equilibrium
Cedar Sigo, Things to Do in Suquamish
Karenne Wood, My Standard Response
Eric Gansworth, A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulminary Function
Janet MacAdams, Leaving the Old Gods

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful collection, highly recommended! This is one of those happy adventures in the public library, where I just saw this book on a shelf and thought 'That looks interesting,' so I checked it out and brought it home. Especially liked Cedar Sigo, but lots of good work collected here.

[Amber Whittle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorites:
Mazinbii’amawaan/ Sending Messages by Margaret Noodin
Quarter Strain by Laura Da’
Linear Process by Gwen Nell Westerman
Birthmark by Jennifer Elise Foerster
Blood Moon Triptych by Jennifer Elise Foerster
Dome Riddle by Natalie Diaz
American Arithmetic by Natalie Diaz
(First Trimester) by Craig Santos Perez
Dear Sonny: by Gordon Henry, Jr
Casualties by M L Smoker
The Poet I Wish I Was by Karenne Wood

[Kristin Boldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book's multiplicity of voices taught me so much. I am thankful for the privilege of reading this book. Savoring it a poem a day was a wonderful experience.

[Helen B · Rating 5 out of 5]

270 pages of spectacular poems

[Alyssa Poulin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great way to dip your toes into modern indigenous poetry. I found a few poets i really liked and was able to follow them on Instagram for further reading. Truthfully, I didn't read every poem in the book but ended up skimming toward the end. That's just what happens with me and poetry. I guess I have a short attention span when it comes to poetry and anthologies.

[Elizabeth]

While I wasn't blown away by this collection like some reviewers were, I really appreciate its existence -- selections from 21 Native poets whose first book was published in the 21st century (i.e., in 2000 or later). And the backmatter gives the included poets the opportunity to name poets who have mentored/influenced them as well as poets they think people should be reading.

The only poet in this collection I already knew was Layli Long Soldier. It was interesting reading excerpts from WHEREAS , knowing the larger work it was a part of.

I'm interested to read more of Tommy Pico's work. I suppose it's unsurprising that queer young folks are who I'm most drawn to. Billy-Ray Belcourt isn't in this anthology, but he's next on my to-read list.

Pico is not actually the only queer author in this collection, huzzah. Julian Talamantez Brolaski is also included -- and there might be other queer poets who didn't flag that element of their identity in their bio.

I was also really into some of Craig Santos Perez' poems about Guam (Guåhan) -- "Lisiensan Ga'lago" from from unincorporated territory [hacha] and "The Legends of Juan Malo [a Malologue]" from from unincorporated territory [lukao].

It's really easy for so many of us to only think of the continent when thinking of Native people, so props to Erdrich for including not just Santos Perez but also Brandy Nālani McDougall (of Hawaiian, Chinese, and Scottish descent from the island of Maui).

The collection spans geography (also includes Inupiaq-Inuit poet dg nanouk okpik, for example), poetic style, engagement with Indigenous language and issues of indigeneity, etc. If you don't know any Native poets, this collection is a great place to start.

[Carolina]

As Natalie Diaz states in her author notes: “I think most people don’t know about most native poets. They don’t even know about most native people. They need to go to the library’s and read books written by people not like them”.

I’m reading contemporary Native American poetry to go beyond the history books and get perspectives from indigenous people, especially from this century. I want to understand and sit with their struggles and injustices and perspectives. There are some mature themes in this collection, and may not be for everyone. With all anthologies, there were some poets and poems that I loved, and some I didn’t. Reading about the modern indigenous experience was powerful, and I’m definitely going to try and find more of my favorite poets from this books work.

Here are my favorite poets/poems:
- all of Layli Long Soldier’s poems- took my breath away and I learned about the Sioux 38 from her poem,
- Dakota homecoming, Gwen nell westerman
- undivided interest, Gwen nell westerman
- canyon, Jennifer Elise foerster
- the first water is the body, Natalie Diaz (this one is amazing! A beautiful poem about the sacredness of water “the Colorado river is the most endangered river in the United States-/ also it is a part of body./ I carry a river. It is who I am: ‘Aha Makav... /translated into English, ‘Aha Makav means the river runs through the middle of our body, the same way it runs through the middle of our land. / this is a poor translation, like all translations” )
- not just anybody can have one, Trevino L. Brings Plenty
- First trimester, Craig santos Perez
- My standard response, Karenne Wood
- Repatriating ourselves, Eric gansworth

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few highlights for me in this collection but not as many as I would have liked. I have really admired Native American poetry in the past but few of these really spoke to me. Maybe others will feel differently, so if you are curious give it a try.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I live in the United Kingdom. I'm privileged. I don't have ancestors who were erased from history in the name of 'progress'. I had never, until reading this anthology ever really thought about the fading and forgotten nations, tribes and people due to colonization. Having read this book I will never forget them.

The anthology includes 21 native poets from around the world. Their works are raw, emotive and capture the modern plight of native people like only they can. Stylistically these poets are pole apart but their messages have far more commonality than just their native descendants. These poets have conveyed historical and present plight and shown how the former is just as raw as the latter.

I implore everyone to read this. Whether you don't normally read poetry or care for it. This anthology is far more than just poetry. It is eye opening, an emotional tour-de-force and is one of the most important works this side of millennium.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

When explaining part of the motivation for this anthology, the editor, Heid E. Erdrich points to Dean Rader's 2017 observation "That a comprehensive anthology of Indigenous American poetry has not been published since 1988 is utterly depressing." (xiii). Heid ends this 30+ year silence with just a fantastic gathering. Trevino L. Brings Plenty and dg nanouk okpik's work was revelatory. Will be coming back to Natalie Diaz's "The First Water Is the Body" and Layli Long Soldier's "38," among others.

[Sarah Esh · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important collection of poetry that highlights up-and-coming Indigenous poets, this is a must-read for any poetry lover.

It's hard to write a review about an anthology, so I won't attempt to. Suffice to say that there is power in anthologizing texts, and the significance of this collection cannot be understated. The only downside is the lack of poets from New England and the North East - for those writers, go to Dawnland Voices.

[Abby Johnson]

Wow. These poems are powerful and challenging and important. This is a great place to start with modern Native American poets - you'll discover plenty of amazing authors here.

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

M.L. Smoker's work was my favorite.

[Kendall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost never write reviews, but I loved this book. I read it in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down. Which I also almost never do.

[Krista Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection - wow.

My favorites: "38" by Layli Long Soldier, "Not Just Anyone Can Have One" by Trevino L. Brings Plenty, "The First Water is the Body" and "American Arithmetic" by Natalie Diaz, "Linear Process" by Gwen Nell Westerman.

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Erdrich's collection (Little Big Bully) and so I was really looking forward to this anthology, thinking if I like the author's own writing I would also like the selections the author made. But that didn't work out for me. I decided to read one poet every day or so (a few days I skipped it). There were times when I started to wonder if perhaps I should just stop reading poetry all together. I did find four authors that I would like to read more from: Laura Da', M.L. Smoker, Karenne Wood, & Janet McAdams, so I suppose I should count that as an overall "win."

Crosscurrent
BY M.L. SMOKER
For James Welch

The first harvest of wheat in flatlands
along the Milk startled me into thoughts of you
and this place we both remember and also forget as home.
Maybe it was the familiarity or maybe it was my own
need to ask if you have ever regretted leaving.
What bends, what gives?
And have you ever missed this wind?—it has now
grown warm with late summer, but soon
it will be as dangerous as the bobcat stalking calves
and pets just south of the river.
Men take out their dogs, a case of beer and wait
in their pickups for dawn, for a chance with their rifles.
They don’t understand that she isn’t going to make
any mistakes. With winter my need for an answer
grows more desperate and there are only four roads out.
One is the same cat hunters drive with mannish glory
and return along, gun still oil-shined and unshot.
Another goes deeper into Assiniboine territory:
This is the one I should talk myself into taking next.
I haven’t much traveled the third except to visit
a hospital where, after the first time,
my mother had refused chemotherapy.
And the last road you know as well as I do—
past the coral-painted Catholic church, its doors
long ago sealed shut to the mouth of Mission Canyon,
then south just a ways, to where the Rockies cut open
and forgive. There you and I are on the ascent.
After that, the arrival is what matters most.
 
Amoroleck's Words
Karenne Wood

You can't take a man's words.
They are his even as the land
is taken away
where another man
builds his house.
—Linda Hogan

You must have been a sight, Captain John Smith,
as your dugout approached,
with Jamestown's men
sporting plumed hats,
poufed knickers, beards, stockings,
funny little shoes.
You might have looked, to us,
well,
uncivilized.
We fought you, we know,
because you wrote it down.
One man was left behind. Wounded.
At your mercy. Among your shining goods—
mirrors, knives, firearms, glass beads—
Where was mercy? Maybe you left it
in England. Eager to learn, Captain Smith,
you asked about the worlds he knew,
whether there was gold,
why his people had fought
when you came to them "in love."
He told you in his dialect,
which no one now speaks.
You recorded his name, his words.
Not his fate.
Of all the words our people spoke
in the year of our Lord 1608,
only his answer remains:
"We heard that you were a people
come from under the world,
to take our world from us."
 

Leaving the Old Gods
JANET MCADAMS

I.
The people who watch me hang my coat
on a peg at the office don't even know
about that other life,
the life when there was you, it,
however briefly. To them my body
is a fact casual as the weather.
I could tell them:
That day it rained
the way it rains in the New World.
Leaves struck the window like daggers.
I didn't think about God
but the ones we used to worship
the ones who want your heart still
beating, who load you with gold
and lure you to sleep
deep in the cenote.

II.
A girl, he said, and I nodded
though we couldn't have known.
I would have left him then
for ten thousand pesos.
I don't know what world you inhabit,
swimming there, baby, not-baby,
part of my body, not me,
swept aside like locks of hair
or toenail parings.
It's ten years today
and you who were never alive
pull a face in the leaves
of jacaranda, the only tree
that lives outside my window.
It must be your voice
whistling through the office window,
though I can't understand your words.
Comfort or accusation,
I can't understand your words.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy poetry you should like this - a variety of topics, individuals and viewpoints, all tied together simply by the fact of the poets’ being Native Americans in the 21st century.

[Marie Kos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Layli Long Soldier's work was some of my favorite in this collection. Her work was particularly heartfelt and creative in form. However, any one of these artists' work would be enjoyed by even a casual poetry fan. The clear organization and presentation of this collection makes it a joy to give ear to the varying voices of America's indigenous people. Many thanks to Heid E. Erdrich, a wonderful poet in her own right, for collecting these voices into one volume.

[Timothy Langhorst · Rating 5 out of 5]

New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich, is a wonderful and much needed collection of 21st century Native poets. The book features 21 poets whose first books books were published since the year 2000. Original voices. Highly recommend.

[Kyla Doll · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this anthology of indigenous poets whose first books came out after 2000. I especially liked the poems of Layli Long Soldier, Tommy Pico, Sy Hoahwah, Brandy Nalani McDougall, and Eric Gansworth. I also liked “Leaving Tulsa” by Jennifer Elise Foerster, “Dome Riddle” and “The First Water Is The Body” by Natalie Diaz, and “Abracadabra, an Abcedarian” and “The Poet I Wish I Was” both by Karenne Wood. The Author Notes section in the back is interesting too, detailing the poets’ routes to publication, mentors, and recommendations for other indigenous poets to read.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally picked up a book of poems! This new one caught me eye because it was 250 pages and because it featured Native Nation poets. Most of these were highly read-able! (I even enjoyed some, which is high praise for poetry, coming from me). The book features 21 poets. My favorites were by Tommy Pico--who writes in chatty texting and instant message vernacular but in a really meaningful way--Jennifer Elise Foerster, whose imagery is clear and compelling, and Laura Da', whose poem "Passive Voice" is a dagger. Recommended for poets and those interested in Native studies.

[Jill Holmberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of these poems I really enjoyed and read twice over, but most of them the format didn't sit with me well or I found it hard to read. I do like how many different poets they were able to get for this collection though and if you want to get more into poetry (especially by Native authors/poets) then this is a great place to start. I had only read 2 of the poets other published works before this.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everybody read this fuckin book

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some powerful poems in this collection. I used this as an introduction to indigenous poets and then plan on reading the books of the poets I liked best. I really appreciated the diversity of poems in this collection. I feel like it’s a collection where everyone can find at least a handful poems they like.