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Night Writings
I demanded my presence
in this world,
begging for my scars to
heal without regrets –
I burned
ceremonial mashkiki…
offering my weary existence to
an unreachable savior, a nameless
destination I yearned
to belong to…
only after I surrendered to how dependent
I was on my absent father.
Still.
I sat at his grave,
rearranging ever-present anger and decades old resentments into
drunken one night
stands, warring
with abstract and weak forgiveness.
I walked away empty handed
just as he
did–
out of my life.
These Sweetgrass Prayers
Closing my eyes I
retrace my steps that brought me here to
Odaawaa Zaagaa’ iganing minawaa,
here standing in
this soil of government allotted land–
planting rhubarb and lilac
trees tending
these wooded acres of ni mama’s home.
I breathe.
Allowing the chilly northern wind to bathe I
rinse off those weighted sorrows of decades
old trauma–
I don’t breathe.
The wise ones instruct me to pray,
think good thoughts they say–
Release those concrete burdens you carry
to the Holy One.
I haven’t.
I need these sweetgrass prayers to.
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Mark Turcotte (Turtle Mountain Band Anishinaabe) has been an active member of Chicago’s thriving poetry scene for some 30 years, and was just named as the sixth Illinois Poet Laureate. He is the author of four collections, including The Feathered Heart and Exploding Chippewas. His poetry and prose have appeared in national and international journals and magazines, and are included in the first-ever Norton Anthology of Native Nations poetry. The PoetryUnbound podcast, hosted by Pådraig Ó Tuama, recently featured his prose-poem, “Dear New Blood.” He served as 2008-09 Visiting Native Writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe and has since been teaching in the English Department at DePaul University, where he is Distinguished Writer-in-Residence.
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Louise K. Waakaa’igan is an enrolled member at Odaawaa-Zaaga’iganiing in northern Wisconsin. Her first chapbook, This Is Where (Aquarius Press) was published in 2020. She is also the first-place winner of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop’s Broadside Competition (2016). Louise’s work has been previously published in PEN America, 21 Mythologies, The Moon Magazine, Night Colors, 27th Letter, Words in Gray Scale, and Doors Adjacent. She is ready to publish her second collection and recently has moved back to her beloved Minneapolis.
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Chris Pappan (Kanza, Lakota) b. 1971
Chris Pappan is an enrolled citizen of the Kaw Nation and honors his Osage and Lakota lineage. His art literally reflects the dominant culture’s distorted perceptions of Native peoples and is based on the Plains Native art tradition known as Ledger Art. A graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe and a nationally recognized painter and ledger artist, Chris’s work is in numerous museums such as the National Museum of the American Indian (Washington DC), the Tia collection (Santa Fe, New Mexico), and the Speed Museum of Art (Louisville, Kentucky) among many others. Chris is currently a board member and co-founder of the Center for Native Futures, a Native American gallery and studio space in downtown Chicago. He lives and works in Chicago with his wife, Debra Yepa-Pappan, and their daughter, Ji Hae.
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