Full Description
Heid E. Erdrich writes from the present into the future where human anxiety lives. Many of her poems engage ekphrasis around the visual work of contemporary artists who, like Erdrich, are Anishinaabe. Poems in this collection also curate unmountable exhibits in not-yet-existent museums devoted to the ephemera of communication and technology. A central trope is the mixtape, an ephemeral form that Erdrich explores in its role of carrying the romantic angst of American couples. These poems recognize how our love of technology and how the extraction industries on indigenous lands that technology requires threaten our future and obscure the realities of indigenous peoples who know what it is to survive apocalypse. Deeply eco-poetic poems extend beyond the page in poemeos, collaboratively made poem films accessible in the text through the new but already archaic use of QR codes. Collaborative poems highlighting lessons in Anishinaabemowin also broaden the context of Erdrich's work. Despite how little communications technology has helped to bring people toward understanding one another, these poems speak to the keen human yearning to connect as they urge engagement of the image, the moment, the sensual, and the real.
Contents
Contents Permanent Installation Curatorial Statement for Wiindigo Eye The Honey Suckers Autobiography as Gesture Wireless Handshake Undead Faerie Goes Great with India Pale Ale Red Star The Gig of Light Boom The Dark Sky Reserve Hang Fire These Are My Pearls, This Is My Swine Pre-Occupied Curatorial Statement for Apocalyptic Poetics At the Anachronism Fair Mix Tape as Didactic Indigenous Elvis Works the Medicine Line Rise Up Fallen Mix Tape Didactic . . . Hither Charger Incantation on a Frank Big Bear Collage Little Spirit Will Not Be Caught Exhibit A Exhibit B—Bear Exhibit F Curatorial Note for Exhibit C Exhibit Q—Q-Code Found Poem Mix Tape Didactic . . . Break Up 1 The Mother The Woman Four Women Agent Blue Mix Tape Didactic . . . Break Up 2 Autobiography as Mix Tape for Lady Mon de Green The New Archaic The Buzz Lexiconography 1/Clothes Pins Aabjito'ikidowinan 1/Anishinaabe Language Lesson 1 Laundress Shepherd Dying Well Lexiconography 2—It Was Cloudy Aabjito'ikidowinan 2/Anishinaabe Language Lesson 2 What Gathers Stars, Seeds, Signs, Ours A Loud Green Dreaming Ombigwewe Ozhaawaashkwaa Bwaajige/Anishinaabemowin Lesson 3 Manidoo Giizhikens/Little Spirit Cedar Tree Curatorial Statement on The Long Gallery Author's Notes A Note about the Art Acknowledgments
