42 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ APRIL 6, 2020
Poetry
Native poets were expected to conform.
But a series of underground efforts sought to promote and support less prominent
writers and Native poets whose work did not fit the stereotypes. “Really, you could
almost call it a movement,” says Erdrich, who is acknowledged by other Native
poets as influential in such efforts and whose endeavors continue. For Native Nations ,
she asked featured poets to spotlight other writers in their contributor’s notes.
In many Native cultures, Erdrich explains, it’s almost a requirement that one not
put oneself too far above others; saying who you come from, who else is part of you,
is de rigueur. “It’s platform building by necessity,” she adds.
Long Soldier agrees. “We’re still working with a landscape where the American
mind associates Native writers with a particular kind of writing,” she says. “People
often come to the work of Native writers as a form of cultural excavation, mining,
rather than coming to it to appreciate the art form itself.”Allied forces
In speaking with Native poets, that narrative of community support recurs.
Graywolf executive editor Jeff Shotts contacted Long Soldier after reading one of
her poems online, which led to Graywolf’s eventual release of Whereas. Cedar Sigo
and Tommy Pico were approached by their first publishers after readings. Friends
of Natalie Diaz sent some of her poems to Copper Canyon without her knowledge;
the press released her first collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec , in 2012.
(See PW ’s q&a with Diaz, “Broken and Beautiful,” p. 45.)
Jason Grundstrom-Whitney, a Passamaquoddy poet whose debut collection, Bear,
Coyote, Raven (Resolute Bear), features cosmic trickster figures from Native story-
telling, tells a similar story. Although an experienced
musical performer, he hesitated to promote his poetry.
“I would write in the morning, and poet friends urged
me to send it out,” he says. “I was daunted by the
process. Then Valerie Lawson and Michael Brown [of
Resolute Bear] heard me read and said, ‘We’ve got to do
his book.’ ” The collection’s use of white space mirrors
the deserts of the Southwest where Grundstrom-
Whitney spent time among members of various nations,
while its rhythms, he says, reflect that “drumbeat is part
of the heart—at Native gatherings you hear it.”
Lawson says the location of Resolute Bear, a small
press in Robbinston, Maine, informs its mission. “We’re
just across the bay from Canada. Tribal lands overlap
the U.S. and Canada, and all are sovereign territories.
Thinking about borders, boundaries, and sharing the
same space and heritage pushed us to put together 3
Nations Anthology: Native, Canadian & New England
Writers in 2017. Along the way, I discovered the rich-
ness, and relative scarcity, of indigenous writings in the
region. It feels like we didn’t find this road, but it was
made for us.”
Many Native poets stress the importance of curiosity
and collaboration on the part of allies. Such support
can be seen at such spaces as Santa Fe, N.Mex.’s
Institute of American Indian Arts, which since its
founding in 1962 has centered Native values as part
of its mission while maintaining a non-native presence
among its faculty and student population. Given theCƂTGNKMG[QW
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9781524853990 | $16.99 | April 2020Poetry to Lift
Your Spirits
continued on p. 46