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Nine Emerging Native Voices, edited by Chicago’s Mark Turcotte.
When ACM asked me if I’d be interested in helping feature the work of Native poets to begin during National Poetry Month, I immediately thought it would be a great opportunity to ask a variety of Native poets I admire for recommendations to emerging poets. They were happy to share some names, both familiar and unknown to me. I was pleased by the generous and trusting responses I received from these poets, and I’m grateful to ACM for entrusting me with the process. — Mark Turcotte
Dragged Down by Honey
The day I made you
a cup of cedar
wrestling with restlessness,
I return to bed.
Falling,
giving in,
to sleep
without rest.
Sleeping in beds that don’t belong
here, all tucked in with
sheets that fight back.
Every time I think
it’s done
I return to bed.
In the pulp left behind
Elderflowers dragged
down by honey.
What does winter taste like?
Wake Up, Wake Up
Springtime is for the seeds and letting light into the home our spirits live in. We prep the soil for the ones who sleep there. Summer picks berries for playtime. The first fruits of our bodies, we remove the weeds that no longer serve us, pick the plants who give their lives and eat them on toast. Sweat drips onto the first tomatoes of Summer. We Fall back, save every last seed for sleeping. Feast for all our relations, until we crave what’s gone.
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Trees crack us awake.
Akakojiishi
You’re made for this time,
the time of lost stories.
Born dreaming, full of memories
that neatly fold in that metal
tin above the stove.
First day of changing,
Winter Maker came down
with illness, never rising.
Never bringing snow down.
Earth without snow, we forgot
how to tell stories of where we
come from the birth of our kin.
In the days before the fog,
right before Bear Cubs are born,
right before Eagles pair up
and the Ravens and the Wolves
Right before the Suckerfish
gives up his life, an old friend
visits from inside of the earth.
Groundhog came to the surface,
leaving his home behind,
the insides of the earth.
Memory
You would have loved her stories,
the one about the water spirit,
the one about the trickster,
the one about Turtle and Chafee.
Our marrow bleeds
berries. Our spirits feed.
Smudge carries us
up high, we are full of stories.
Niishime, do you know what blood memory is?
Her songs from her mom and her mom and
Kookum. Her words had already left us,
dancing in the sky, my words too.
How do I tell you, Niishime,
about this story?
Together we searched
the ditch in the front yard, the spot
we kept the rain and the stories.
In the snow deep, we could never reach.
Niishime, your story is beginning.
Have you heard the one about your daughter,
her daughter, and her daughter?
You can read it all from the stars.
Niishime, join me in searching
in the next world. We can find the song
about the young ones next to her
bed, a pillow of seeds.
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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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Tyra Payer is from the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe, where they grew up. They are a writer and educator who has a background of storytelling and Indigenous food systems. When they’re not writing, you can find Tyra at the farmers market or their gardens.
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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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