Dark Traffic: Poems

by Joan Naviyuk Kane

Finalist, 2023 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award

Dark Traffic creates landmarks through language, by which its speakers begin to describe traumas in order to survive and move through them. With fine detail and observation, these poems work in some way like poetic readers of Kane’s work will see the artic and subarctic, but also, more broadly, America, and the exigencies of motherhood, indigenous experience, feminism, and climate crises alongside the near-necropastoral of misogyny, violence, and systemic failures. These contexts catch the voice of the poems’ speakers, and we perceive the currents they create.

Genres: Poetry, Indigenous, School

88 pages, Paperback

First published September 14, 2021

About the author

Joan Naviyuk Kane is an Inupiaq American poet. She is 2014 Indigenous Writer-in-Residence at the School for Advanced Research.

Joan Kane is Inupiaq Eskimo, with family from King Island and Mary's Igloo, Alaska. She graduated from Harvard College and from Columbia University with an M.F.A.

She lives in Anchorage, Alaska with her husband and sons.

Reviews

[Ross Williamson · Rating 5 out of 5]

wish i could give this five Hundred stars

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems are of cold & sea and a dark winter waiting. I am in constant awe of the way she uses language and keep a thesaurus close, hahaha. But there are also moments are bare emotion that I hold close: (this excerpt from "Rehearsal for Surveying the Ruins")

Unable to construct a more compassionate narrative,
I have drowned and turned back into myself—
pitiless, traveling north against the waves. If,

at the end, I remain paper-thin, I do not want
to hear ceaselessly of it. I no longer circle
the graves of the dead, the ones who exact

so much from the living. [...]

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how these poems change according to the tempo they're read in, the variations of rhythm, the variations in what becomes visible/heard. No poem should be read just once. Each is an invitation to dwell in it, explore alongside it, and learn. Words, their sound, and the space around them form and re-form landscape, and raise the combined threats of climate change and the white settler perspective. The beauty is unsparing, harsh, and stunning. Hold these poems to your ear!

[Camille Dungy]

Just as the massive, Cold War-era long-distance communication dishes known by the name White Alice were once scattered across Alaska’s landscape, White Alice poems recur throughout Dark Traffic. They convey wreck and ruin, sending sonic clusters of rage and worry bouncing from page to page. Look around, as the poems in this book do, and see ice melting, see landing sites where you thought there was nowhere to land, see snow geese and coal dust and crowberry-stained ground. See a Native Alaskan woman seeking help from one of the only female psychiatrists of color in the state. See a single mother teaching her son to swim. This book’s scattered, honest communications are lyric and concrete and rooted in place, in the body, in violence, in reckoning, and in truth.

Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2021/11/nat...

[Bojan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning and keeps it real, as always.

[Noah Doser · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for --- sorry, I'm in the middle of class and I keep zoning out. But, my god, I don't know how much more I can take of Santee's drawl scatterings of poetic prose and--- oh my god, shut the fuck up, Margo. You are the dumbest goddamn person I've ever met. I can't believe I was stupid enough to kiss you- -- you are not intelligent; you are pretentious. Big words don't equate to sophistication, yes. But, guess what, neither does using the most BRAIN DEAD FUCKING arrogant ramblings about some cock-eyed loser from UChicago. Oh my god. Shut up.

Solid collection. Order of poems needs some touch-up, but the narrative is not lost. Hope I get to meet Kane someday.

[Will Plunkett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hail to Pitt (Press, and Poetry Series)! I hadn't read a book by an Alaskan writer before; I think this applies here. Her structures of poems were interesting; I got some ideas for styles myself (I am an English teacher), and I noticed that few if any included words from the titles in the bodies of the pieces.

[Irene M · Rating 2 out of 5]

It turns out (not a shocker) that poetry isn't my thing. At times I could sense deep emotion in her work, but mostly I was lost.

[hence · Rating 5 out of 5]

what modern poetry should be,, incredible and i will be rereading the moment i have spare time again

[laila* · Rating 4 out of 5]

reminds me of a way i wanted to write,, years ago

[Rebecca Bailey]

Beautiful language and natural imagery, though I wish it were more accessible.

[Jonah Gold · Rating 3 out of 5]

super deep but crazy ass poetry

[Taylor Franson-Thiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS WAS SO GOOD. JOAN NAVIYUK KANE F*CK IT UP!!!!!

So excited to read other collections.

[Melanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

At moments I was able to feel feminine power in the writing along with gaining an understanding of native Alaskan history but..... I don't really enjoy spending most of my reading time having to Google more information about what I am reading. I spent more time trying to research what I was reading about than being able to just sit and enjoy the poetry.

I think going into this book with a better understanding of Alaskan history would be useful before sitting down and starting.