WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 41Feed author Tommy Pico, a member of the Kumeyaay nation.
“If our work is du jour, how much are readers really invested?”A renaissance old and new
The years from the end of the 1960s to the early ’80s saw a
flowering in the national visibility of Native poetic voices,
with Joy Harjo, Linda Hogan, and Simon Ortiz among those
published by major houses of the era. But a drought seemed
to follow, says Ojibwe poet
Heid E. Erdrich, who edited the
anthology New Poets of Native
Nations (Graywolf). The expla-
nation, she says, is simple:
“Publishers were saying, ‘We’ve
already got our Native poets.’ ”
Concurrently, poets with ten-
uous connections to Native
heritage, whom she calls “faux-
skinned” and of “the Gary
Snyder school,” claimed space
and satisfied publishers with a
brand of spirituality to whichTommy Pico, Layli Long Soldier, and others show that
Native American poetry contains multitudesBY JEROME ELLISON MURPHY
T
his National Poetry Month, readers may be
more attuned than ever to Native American
voices, as indigenous poets enjoy a long-
awaited period of renewed recognition. In
June, the Library of Congress appointed Joy
Harjo, member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, as U.S. poet
laureate. Harjo is the author of 14 books of poetry including,
most recently, An American Sunrise (Norton), and she edited
the forthcoming When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our
Songs Came Through (Norton, Aug.), a survey of more than 160
poets from nearly 100 Native American nations, with work
dating back centuries.
Harjo’s laureateship comes on the heels of Lakota tribe
member Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas (Graywolf), a National
Book Critics Circle Award winner and a finalist for the
National Book Award, and seems to promise more public
attention to Native concerns. Recalling hearing news of
Harjo’s appointment, Long Soldier says, “I think I cried three
times that day. It felt like a big vista opened up for all of us.”
Poets from diverse Native backgrounds agree, while also
pointing to the danger in having a cultural moment. “Of
course, the fear of having a moment is that it’s ephemeral,” says