Full Description
Native Writers Circle Of The Americas First Book Award For Poetry These poems rise from the smoke of a Council Fire. Around the fire gather many nations of the world, some angry, some at peace. The nations' emissaries accept invitations to stand together at the Fork-in-the-Road Indian Poetry Store and turn rhythmically to the four cardinal directions, so that the earth can regain its balance. Facing East, the ambassadors see Flags of Mercy hanging over New York City and Nagasaki, then encounter and embrace a manic-depressive Native Hawaiian-Cherokee medicine man in Oklahoma City. Traveling closer to the moon and stars they fly with a dreamer in the Garden of the Bumblebees, and they listen in Weleetka, Oklahoma, to the last two living speakers of Yuchi. Turning North, the councilors ice skate with post-Vietnam revolutionaries on glacier lakes in Idaho. They chase grouse in snow two feet deep, ponder dormancy in hyphenated winters and university libraries, and learn the best way to build a fall fire. Facing West, they lie on cool, creek bed vulvas of earth in sweltering Great Plains summer, navigate a wilderness river in canoes, and kiss a lover at dawn in the Chihuahan desert. Finally, turning in the divine direction South, the emissaries hear The Story of The Seeds, a journey back to 1540, to the conquest of Mabila by De Soto. In a stream of survival, they emigrate with Choctaws on trails of tears from Mississippi to Oklahoma, before sharing big ripe melons in the delta of the Vegetable River. They finish their revolution facing east again, just before dawn.
Contents
PART I. Facing East
Construction
Council Fire
Flag of Mercy
Closer to the Moon
Ceremony
More Like Children
Holhpokunna The Garden of the Bumblebees
Mixed Blood
Mother Yakni
The Great Society
Rain Dancers
The Carpenter's Dilemma
like a full moon over a thunderhead
The Fork-in-the-Road Indian Poetry Store
PART II. Turning North
Ochre Hole
Revolutionaries
The Big Woodpecker
when you foresee the unforeseeable
Diphthongs to Dipterons
Stepping Out
New York
Earth Life
Endangered Species
Shimmering Thread
Hyphenated Winter
University Library
Run
Water Planet
Winter Trees
I Have Some Advice For You
PART III. Facing West
The Two-Pronged Stick
Father Luak
World's Largest Rez
Journal Entry: March 23rd, Chihuahuan Desert
Am I Seeing?
halito akhana hello my friend
Ballad of Kenneth Ruth
Anumpa Apesa a Iti Hikia: The Judgment of Standing Trees
Click Beetle
Life's Work:
I Found the Earth in Snails
Snake Bags
We Spoke French Throughout the Desert
He Showed Them Snakes
most cynics would laugh
On the Nile
All About Wind
On That Great Plateau
A Desert Love Poem
PART IV. Turning South
creator
The Story of The Seeds
No Goodbye
Anumpa Boklukfi Hilha The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek
The Dogs Did Not Follow
Black Crow
The Lost Ponds
White Bone Hooks
Aiena e-Taloa We Sing Together
Meadowlark, Large Family of the Plains
Ragged Owl Nest
A Popular Theme
Bohpoli
Mobius Garden
Vegetable River
Fire and Wind
Fried Rabbit
Digging Deeper
Before Dawn
