National Native American Heritage Month

This November, in honor of National Native American Heritage Month, we have curated a collection of poems that highlight Indigenous voices. With careful attention to imagery and prosody, these poems reflect the power of language, culture, and nature, while celebrating the diversity of Indigenous identities and experiences.

I Am the Land

Lee Maracle

I am the land
The bones of ancestors
Sleeping under
Grass and earth
I am the river
Flowing through time
Carrying stories of
Generations gone by
I am the sky
Watching over
Protecting my people
With arms outstretched
I am the land
And the land is me

Borrowed from: Poetry Foundation

Recommended by Ian Carrillo: So, the reason I chose this is because of the ancestor bit. I read it more corporeal, like about how everything flows together, like a corporeal spiritual connection. That the person is the land and the trees, the metaphysical and the physical connect.

Lee Maracle, OC, author and critic. She was a First Nations writer. She pushed for more authentic and fair treatment of indigenous in the canadian literery scene. She is considered a Stó:lō writer. Stó꞉lō is the Halqemeylem word for “river”, so the Stó꞉lō are the river people. She had a traditional education as a girl. Then, as a teenager, I went to the Argyle Secondary School in North Vancouver. For native american segregation. In 1967, she was a part of various rebellious protesting groups, including within hippie, Black Panther, and Red Power.

Soft Thunder

Jake Skeets

narrowmouth toads dapple pink sandstone

knee-deep in a brown bowl of brown water

before the croon of limb and wind on weeds

puddles from the pour gather for a morning song

the sun rises from a flatbed load of open palms

: each crease a ripple a leg a half smile

the sun knows best when it rises

: each tide and oak and uplift sung the same

each killdeer and mare and desert bighorn

each I I gorge each I I ravine each I I—

and each part of me is hung out to dry marooned

and wrung of rain, wrung of every I until no I is left

: soft thunder

ponds in a clearing

Borrowed from: Poetry Foundation

Recommended by Deborah Kang: Skeets’s poetry feels like an echo of nature; it’s uncontrollable and threatening, but beautiful. His style is incredibly evocative, intertwining his personal experiences with that of his natural environment and people. The world is made raw in Skeets’s writing.

Jake Skeets is Black Streak Wood, born for Water’s Edge. He is Diné from Vanderwagen, New Mexico. He earned an MFA in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Skeets is a winner of the 2018 Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Contest and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Skeets edits an online publication called Cloudthroat and organizes a poetry salon and reading series called Pollentongue, based in the Southwest. He is a member of Saad Bee Hózhǫ́: A Diné Writers’ Collective and teaches at the University of Oklahoma. Skeets is the author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers (Milkweed, 2019).

How Soon

Gordon Henry Jr.

The story goes from in a rainfall

to sister walking a field

browned autumn. And when she arrives

winter has come, so the old man

rises from his chair, picks up

matches, pipes and tools, and

walks out to begin again.

The sculptures grow by the day,

birds in ice, recognizable

eagles, a bear who began

as a man in a moment of dance.

He does this in ice, all

winter carving at dawn,

carving at dusk.

And sister after walking a field

browned autumn, arrives, watches

from the east window, waits,

goes out to him in spring,

taps him on the shoulder

and points to the pools

of water he’s standing over.

Borrowed from: Poetry Foundation

Recommended by Bridgette Roberson: Gordon is a storyteller whose experience as an indigenous person are the catalysts which spawn his poems. Gordon’s poem “How soon”Intertwines surrealism, folktale and memory to resonate a scene where young and old learn a lesson about impermanence.

Gordon Henry Jr. is an Anishinabe and an enrolled member of the White Earth Chippewa Tribe of Minnesota. His father was in the U.S. Navy, and Henry grew up on military bases. He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin, Parkside; an MA in English and creative writing from Michigan State University; and a PhD from the University of North Dakota. He is the author of the poetry chapbook Outside White Earth (1986) and the book-length collection The Failure of Certain Charms (2007). Henry held a Fulbright Lectureship in Spain in 1994. He is a professor of English at Michigan State University and editor of the American Indian Studies Series at Michigan State University Press.

Elegy for My Younger Sister

Luci Tapahonso

For Marilynn

Nihideezhí, it was a moist June afternoon when we buried you.

The Oak Springs Valley was dense with sage, cedar, and chamisa;

and gray, green, and brown shrubs cradled the small cemetery.

The sky was huge overhead.

Your son said later, “Did you see the sky? It was purple.

I knew it would rain,” he said.

The dark Carrizo Mountains were so clear.

There were so many people, Sister.

Many of your friends whom we didn’t know,

and your former schoolmates whom we remembered as children,

and Sister, we met many relatives for the first time.

We cried, not wanting to leave you in that serene place.

We hesitated, though our father, his parents, and their parents

are buried there. Our older sisters thought ahead to bring flowers for them.

They huddled quietly over their graves a few feet away.

Shideezhí, remember how red the sand is?

The men—your sons, our nephews, grandsons, and various in-laws—

took turns filling your grave. Their necks and arms were streaked

with dusty sweat. They kept their heads down;

their faces were damp and eyes, swollen.

We had to get it all out; we cried

and held each other. My granddaughters hovered near me

as if I might faint or fall unexpectedly.

Did you see, Sister, the way the grandchildren fed and served everyone?

They guided the grandparents and the elderly to their chairs.

Once seated, they served plates filled with mutton ribs,

potato salad, corn, thick slabs of oven bread, crispy fry bread,

and Jell-O salad. They placed the salt and pepper—that enduring couple—

before us and implored us to eat. The two delights we relished were good—

hot, strong coffee and cold, crisp diet pop.

We ate for you; we consumed your meal, Shideezhí.

We ate to honor the times you cooked for us—

those tasty dishes, scrumptious pastries combined with laughter,

silly childhood memories, and always teasing jokes.

Sister, I didn’t know how we would make it;

it is still too much to think of you not being here.

Borrowed from: Poetry Foundation

Recommended by Adam Secades

Luci Tapahonso is professor of English Literature and Language at the University of New Mexico. In 2013, she was named the inaugural poet laureate of the Navajo Nation. She is the author of three children’s books and six books of poetry, including A Radiant Curve, which was awarded the Arizona Book Award for Poetry in 2009.

Perhaps the World Ends Here

Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been

since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They

scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be

human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our

children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we

put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow

of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial

here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and

remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and

crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Borrowed from: Poetry Foundation

Recommended by Trina Huynh: “Perhaps the World Ends Here” is a loving recognition of life’s wholeness, despite the title’s connotation of an apocalyptic tone. The kitchen table becomes more than just a place for eating or discussion; it becomes a spiritual center, connecting all areas of human endeavor and emotion, bound in lighthearted and terrible events. In Harjo’s vision of the kitchen table, everything happens: there are beginnings and ends, joys and conflicts, but still, humans converge at this place.

Remember

Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the star’s stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people

are you.

Remember you are this universe and this

universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

Borrowed from: Academy of American Poetry

Recommended by Solias Armas: The reason I chose this poem is that it connects to identity and nature. To me, the poem speaks to everyone around us, especially about just being who you are. Harjo’s words to me have a calm nature to it, telling you to slow down and reflect on where you come from. To me, it’s a powerful but timeless reminder to honor our roots, but also that we are all connected, which to me makes a great poem to honor Native American Heritage Month.

Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She earned her BA from the University of New Mexico and MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Harjo draws on First Nation storytelling and histories, as well as feminist and social justice poetic traditions, and frequently incorporates indigenous myths, symbols, and values into her writing.

Her website: https://www.joyharjo.com/

The First Water is the Body (an extract)

Natalie Diaz

The Colorado River is the most endangered river in the United States – also, it is a part of my body.

I carry a river. It is who I am: ‘Aha Makav. This is not metaphor.

When a Mojave says, Inyech ‘Aha Makavch ithuum, we are saying our name.

We are telling a story of our existence. The river runs through the middle

of my body.

So far, I have said the word river in every stanza. I don’t want to waste water.

I must preserve the river in my body.

In future stanzas, I will try to be more conservative.

The Spanish called us, Mojave. Colorado, the name they gave our river be

-cause it was silt-red-thick.

Natives have been called red forever. I have never met a red Native, not

even on my reservation, not even at the National Museum of the American

Indian, not even at the largest powwow in Parker, Arizona.

I live in the desert along a dammed blue river. The only red people I’ve seen

are white tourists sunburned after staying out on the water too long.

‘Aha Makav is the true name of our people, given to us by our Creator who

loosed the river from the earth and built it into our living bodies.

Translated into English, ‘Aha Makav means the river runs through the

middle of our body, the same way it runs through the middle of our land.

This is a poor translation, like all translations.

Borrowed from: Poetry Book Society

Recommended by Sydni Lewis: In “The First Water Is the Body,” Diaz connects the human body to rivers and water, showing how deeply they are intertwined in Indigenous belief and survival. She reflects on how colonization and environmental harm affect both the physical body and the land, reminding readers that protecting water is an act of protecting life itself.

Natalie Diaz is a Mojave American poet and former professional basketball player whose work powerfully explores themes of Indigenous identity, the body, language, and connection to the land.

School

Briceda Cuevas Cob

Translated from Yucatecan Maya by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

And the ants that sing, laugh, dance
and play in circles, began to cry.
She was born a woman, one on whom they
threw boiling water when she appeared
in the kitchen1.

You will go to school.
You will not be an empty head.
You will cross over the threshold of your imagination
enter you own house
and not have to knock at the door.
And contemplating a face that resembles yours
you will discover that from your eyelashes
night arrows are put in the heart of the land,
your innocence descends
and the grandeur of your ancestry rises.
You will go to school
and in the cupped hands of your understanding
you will contend with the draining of the womb of the woman of your race.
With your heel
you will decipher the hieroglyphics written by the sand,
the wind and sun.
You will be wide-eyed with admiration
contemplating your languishing breasts
which have poured life over the earth.
You will go to school
but you will return to your house,
your kitchen,
to paint the womb of the mat with achiote2,
to note the tongue of soot that licks your white dress,
to inflate the fiery sphere with your lungs,
to judge the delicate fingers of smoke with your eyes,
to read the sizzle on the other side of the comal3,
to read the crackle of the fire4.
You will return to your kitchen
because a banquet awaits you.

Because the oven keeps a mirror in its innards.
A mirror in which the imprint of your soul is found.
A mirror that invokes you with the voice of its brilliance.

Footnotes:

The author alludes to a traditional Maya song. The ants were made happy by the birth of a boy, because when he becomes an adult he will make a gift of the corn from his own provisions. When a girl grows up, on the contrary, they will scare her away from the kitchen by throwing boiling water at her.
Annato
A flat surface for cooking
The belief that the fire in a kitchen can transmit messages about visits or occurrences in the future.

Borrowed from: Words Without Borders

Recommended by Kevin Guerrero: School serves as a conversation sharing a piece of knowledge to a poet, this poem explores the duality of recognizing one’s own struggle and oppression while also taking inspiration in our ancestors and possibilities to achieve better things. Coming back to the kitchen ends the poem with a conscious call for all to return to their roots. The innovation of using Yucatecan Mayan language effectively touches on deeply emotional and cultural experiences, and represents a cultural heritage that connects to native communities across borders.

Briceida Cuevas Cob (1969 – Tepakán, Mexico) is a poet and cultural promoter. Her work recreates the life of Maya women, referring to ancestral knowledge and revealing the tensions between the traditional and the modern, between Maya society and international societies. Cueva’s poetry presents women from small communities in everyday situations: women who experience pleasure and suffering, who live closely connected to nature and the traditional society of their communities.

Passive Voice

Laura Da’

I use a trick to teach students

how to avoid passive voice.

Circle the verbs.

Imagine inserting “by zombies”

after each one.

Have the words been claimed

by the flesh-hungry undead?

If so, passive voice.

I wonder if these

sixth graders will recollect,

on summer vacation,

as they stretch their legs

on the way home

from Yellowstone or Yosemite

and the byway’s historical marker

beckons them to the

site of an Indian village—

Where trouble was brewing.

Where, after further hostilities, the army was directed to enter.

Where the village was razed after the skirmish occurred.

Where most were women and children.

Riveted bramble of passive verbs

etched in wood—

stripped hands

breaking up from the dry ground

to pinch the meat

of their young red tongues.

Borrowed from: Poetry Foundation

Recommended by Ana Rolim: “Passive Voice” highlights how language can help attenuate horrific actions by making them passive in written form. Laura Da’ evokes a sharp imagery that alludes to the indigenous people’s decimation while empowering the verbs by describing their actions.

Laura Da’ is a poet and teacher. A lifetime resident of the Pacific Northwest, Da’ studied creative writing at the University of Washington and The Institute of American Indian Arts. She has served as Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and Poet Planner for King County, Washington. Da’s books include, Tributaries, winner of the American Book Award, Instruments of the True Measure, winner of the Washington State Book Award, and Severalty, forthcoming in 2025. Da’ is Eastern Shawnee and she lives in Washington with her family.

Poet’s website: http://laurada.com/

Layli Long Soldier

Here, the sentence will be respected.

I will compose each sentence with care, by minding what the rules of writing dictate.

For example, all sentences will begin with capital letters.

Likewise, the history of the sentence will be honored by ending each one with appropriate punctuation such as a period or question mark, thus bringing the idea to (momentary) completion.

You may like to know, I do not consider this a “creative piece.”

I do not regard this as a poem of great imagination or a work of fiction.

Also, historical events will not be dramatized for an “interesting” read.

Therefore, I feel most responsible to the orderly sentence; conveyor of thought.

That said, I will begin.

You may or may not have heard about the Dakota 38.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of it, you might wonder, “What is the Dakota 38?”

The Dakota 38 refers to thirty eight Dakota men who were executed by hanging, under orders from President Abraham Lincoln.

To date, this is the largest “legal” mass execution in US history.

The hanging took place on December 26, 1862—the day after Christmas.

This was the same week that President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

In the preceding sentence, I italicize “same week” for emphasis.

There was a movie titled Lincoln about the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was included in the film Lincoln; the hanging of the Dakota 38 was not.

In any case, you might be asking, “Why were thirty eight Dakota men hung?”

As a side note, the past tense of hang is hung, but when referring to the capital punishment of hanging, the correct past tense is hanged.

So it’s possible that you’re asking, “Why were thirty-eight Dakota men hanged?”

They were hanged for the Sioux Uprising.

I want to tell you about the Sioux Uprising, but I don’t know where to begin.

I may jump around and details will not unfold in chronological order.

Keep in mind, I am not a historian.

So I will recount facts as best as I can, given limited resources and understanding.

Before Minnesota was a state, the Minnesota region, generally speaking, was the traditional homeland for Dakota, Anishinaabeg, and Ho-Chunk people.

During the 1800s, when the US expanded territory, they “purchased” land from the Dakota people as well as the other tribes.

But another way to understand that sort of “purchase” is: Dakota leaders ceded land to the US government in exchange for money or goods, but most importantly, the safety of their people.

Some say that Dakota leaders did not understand the terms they were entering, or they never would have agreed.

Even others call the entire negotiation “trickery.”

But to make whatever-it-was official and binding, the US government drew up an initial treaty.

This treaty was later replaced by another (more convenient) treaty, and then another.

I’ve had difficulty unraveling the terms of these treaties, given the legal speak and congressional language.

As treaties were abrogated (broken) and new treaties were drafted, one after another, the new treaties often referenced old defunct treaties, and it is a muddy, switchback trail to follow.

Although I often feel lost on this trail, I know I am not alone.

However, as best as I can put the facts together, in 1851, Dakota territory was contained to a twelve-mile by one-hundred-fifty-mile long strip along the Minnesota River.

But just seven years later, in 1858, the northern portion was ceded (taken) and the southern portion was (conveniently) allotted, which reduced Dakota land to a stark ten-mile tract.

These amended and broken treaties are often referred to as the Minnesota Treaties.

The word Minnesota comes from mni, which means water; and sota, which means turbid.

Synonyms for turbid include muddy, unclear, cloudy, confused, and smoky.

Everything is in the language we use.

For example, a treaty is, essentially, a contract between two sovereign nations.

The US treaties with the Dakota Nation were legal contracts that promised money.

It could be said, this money was payment for the land the Dakota ceded; for living within assigned boundaries (a reservation); and for relinquishing rights to their vast hunting territory which, in turn, made Dakota people dependent on other means to survive: money.

The previous sentence is circular, akin to so many aspects of history.

As you may have guessed by now, the money promised in the turbid treaties did not make it into the hands of Dakota people.

In addition, local government traders would not offer credit to “Indians” to purchase food or goods.

Without money, store credit, or rights to hunt beyond their ten-mile tract of land, Dakota people began to starve.

The Dakota people were starving.

The Dakota people starved.

In the preceding sentence, the word “starved” does not need italics for emphasis.

One should read “The Dakota people starved” as a straightforward and plainly stated fact.

As a result—and without other options but to continue to starve—Dakota people retaliated.

Dakota warriors organized, struck out, and killed settlers and traders.

This revolt is called the Sioux Uprising.

Eventually, the US Cavalry came to Mnisota to confront the Uprising.

More than one thousand Dakota people were sent to prison.

As already mentioned, thirty eight Dakota men were subsequently hanged.

After the hanging, those one thousand Dakota prisoners were released.

However, as further consequence, what remained of Dakota territory in Mnisota was dissolved (stolen).

The Dakota people had no land to return to.

This means they were exiled.

Homeless, the Dakota people of Minnesota were relocated (forced) onto reservations in South Dakota and Nebraska.

Now, every year, a group called the Dakota 38 + 2 Riders conduct a memorial horse ride from Lower Brule, South Dakota, to Mankato, Mnisota.

The Memorial Riders travel 325 miles on horseback for eighteen days, sometimes through subzero blizzards.

They conclude their journey on December 26, the day of the hanging.

Memorials help focus our memory on particular people or events.

Often, memorials come in the forms of plaques, statues, or gravestones.

The memorial for the Dakota 38 is not an object inscribed with words, but an act.

Yet, I started this piece because I was interested in writing about grasses.

So, there is one other event to include, although it’s not in chronological order and we must backtrack a little.

When the Dakota people were starving, as you may remember, government traders would not extend store credit to “Indians.”

One trader named Andrew Myrick is famous for his refusal to provide credit to Dakota people by saying, “If they are hungry, let them eat grass.”

There are variations of Myrick’s words, but they are all something to that effect.

When settlers and traders were killed during the Sioux Uprising, one of the first to be executed by the Dakota was Andrew Myrick.

When Myrick’s body was found,

his mouth was stuffed with grass.

I am inclined to call this act by the Dakota warriors a poem.

There’s irony in their poem.

There was no text.

“Real” poems do not “really” require words.

I have italicized the previous sentence to indicate inner dialogue, a revealing moment.

But, on second thought, the words “Let them eat grass” click the gears of the poem into place.

So, we could also say, language and word choice are crucial to the poem’s work.

Things are circling back again.

Sometimes, when in a circle, if I wish to exit, I must leap.

And let the body swing.

From the platform.

Out

to the

grasses.

Borrowed from: Poetry Foundation

Recommended by Claire Locke: Layli Long Soldier takes my breath away with her poetry. She makes the words do exactly what she wants them to do, as her intentionality and sincerity is apparent in her work. “38” is a perfect example of how powerful her ability to storytell is, forcing her audience to pay attention through her frankness and unique formatting.

Layli Long Soldier earned a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA with honors from Bard College. She is the author of the chapbook Chromosomory (2010) and the full-length collection Whereas (2017), which won the National Books Critics Circle award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has been a contributing editor to Drunken Boat and poetry editor at Kore Press; in 2012, her participatory installation, Whereas We Respond, was featured on the Pine Ridge Reservation. In 2015, Long Soldier was awarded a National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry. She was awarded a Whiting Writer’s Award in 2016.

Long Soldier is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.