Poetry by Indigenous AuthorsLike this list

17 items

• Living Nations, Living Words

  An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry

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  US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, edits this collection of poetry by Indigenous authors. She introduces the collection as "poetry [that] emerges from the soul of a community, the heart and lands of the people. In this country, poetry is rooted…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Language Arts

  Sigo, Cedar

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  Suquamish. Playful and spontaneous, adventurous and loving. Sigo's poems read like a poetry dance party.

• it was never going to be okay

  simpson, jaye

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  Anishinaabeg and Oji-Cree. simpson explores their intersecting identities, including Indigeneity and queerness.

• Bones

  Pennock, Tyler

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  Cree - Nehiyawak and Métis. Pennock's debut poetry collection looks inward, challenging memory, identity, and experiences through dreams and shadows.

• Blood

  Pennock, Tyler

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  Cree - Set in the same world as Bones, this book focuses on a Two-Spirit Indigenous person trying to navigate their relationship with their culture, their surroundings and themselves and exploring the bonds of human and non-human kinship.

• Nature Poem

  Pico, Tommy

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  Kumeyaay Nation. Pico grapples with his unwillingness to write about nature in contrast with colonial stereotypes and his own identity in this book-length poem.

• Apple Skin to the Core

  [a Memoir in Words and Pictures]

  Gansworth, Eric L.,

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  Onondaga, Tuscarora Nation. A memoir in verse, prose, and imagery layering intersecting identities, generational and individual experiences, isolation, and memory. Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

• Postcolonial Love Poem

  Diaz, Natalie,

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  Akimel O'odham. Love poems against erasure; compassion for bodies of land and water; and tenderness for language, enemies, and family. These poems invite the reader to reengage with the world through tenderness.

• An American Sunrise

  Poems

  Harjo, Joy,

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  Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Harjo, the first Indigenous Poet Laureate of the United States, engages in dialogue with her personal and Tribal histories, family deaths, and her involvement with the Native rights movement.

• Eyes Bottle Dark With a Mouthful of Flowers

  Poems

  Skeets, Jake,

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  Diné. Skeet's debut collection of poetry unfolds in Gallup, New Mexico, with luminous and bleak language guiding the reader through coming of age in the "Indian Capital of the World."

• The Nightlife

  Poems

  Paschen, Elise

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  Osage. Paschen's collection draws on dream life and what is hidden in the night.

• Dissolve

  Bitsui, Sherwin

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  Diné. Bitsui takes the reader through the American Southwest, visiting and revisiting places rural and urban, familiar and strange, shifting and hazy.

• Whereas

  Long Soldier, Layli,

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  Oglala Lakota. A collection of short verse, prose poems, narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers confronting the coercive behavior of the U.S. government in Tribal relations, both historically and presently.

• Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's

  Midge, Tiffany, 1965-

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  Standing Rock Sioux. This collection, although mostly essays, does include poetry that shifts between genres and changes from humor to political commentary, despair to sharp satire.

• New Poets of Native Nations

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  Edited by Heid E. Erdrich, this collection explores the range of contemporary Indigenous poetry from poets of all ages, styles, languages, and Tribal affiliations.

• Moccasins And Microphones

  Modern Native Storytelling Through Performance Poetry

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  This documentary follow the Santa Fe Indian School Spoken Word Team during the development and presentation of their spoken work poetry intertwined with traditional and contemporary song and dance.

• Little Big Bully

  Erdrich, Heid

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  Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe. Erdrich investigates oppression in the current political and social climate with language that carries its own percussion.