Its own undoing.Breeze of dreams, then certain death.--from "History"Duende, that dark and elusive force described by Federico García Lorca, is the creative and ecstatic power an artist seeks to channel from within. It can lead the artist toward revelation, but it must also, Lorca says, accept and even serenade the possibility of death. Tracy K. Smith's bold second poetry collection explores history and the intersections of folk traditions, political resistance, and personal survival. Duende gives passionate testament to suppressed cultures, and allows them to sing.

    Her arresting, edgy poems about aging and grief are surprising and invigorating: a defiant balm. At the same time, she revels in the quirkiness and whimsy of the natural world: the vision of a fly, the naming of an eggplant, and a woman who — not unhappily — finds that cockroaches are drawn to her.“God draws a life. And then begins to rub it out / with the eraser on his pencil.” Lorna Crozier draws a world in What the Soul Doesn’t Want, and then beckons us in. Crozier’s signature wit and striking imagery are on display as she stretches her wings and reminds us that we haven’t yet seen all that she can do.

    Feisty, precocious Zuleika, daughter of Sudanese immigrants-made-good and restless teenage bride of a rich Roman businessman, craves passion and excitement. When she begins an affair with the emperor, Septimius Severus, she knows her life will never be the same. Streetwise, seductive, and lyrical, with a lively, affecting heroine, The Emperor’s Babe is a strikingly imaginative historical novel-in-verse.

    In simple but vivid detail, Velma Wallis depicts a landscape and way of life that are at once merciless and starkly beautiful. In her old women, she has created two heroines of steely determination whose story of betrayal, friendship, community and forgiveness "speaks straight to the heart with clarity, sweetness and wisdom" (Ursula K. Le Guin).

    Zolbrod's new translation renders the power and delicacy of the oral storytelling performance on the page through a poetic idiom appropriate to the Navajo oral tradition.Zolbrod's book offers the general reader a vivid introduction to Navajo culture. For students of literature this book proposes a new way of looking at our literary heritage.

    Mary is the only one not killed and scalped. She is instead given to two Seneca sisters to replace their brother who was killed by whites. Emerging slowly from shock, Mary--now named Two-Falling-Voices--begins to make her home in Seneca culture and the wild landscape. She goes on to marry a Delaware, then a Seneca, and, though she contemplates it several times, never rejoins white society. Larsen alludes beautifully to the way Mary apprehends the brutality of both the white colonists and the native tribes; and how, open-eyed and independent, she thrives as a genuine American.

    In this carefully chosen collection, encompassing traditional songs and contemporary Native American poetry, readers will find a treasury of lyrics verse composed by Seminole, Hopi, Navajo, Pima, Havasupai, Arapaho, Paiute, Nootka, and other Indian writers and poets.Selections range from the beautiful, traditional Seminole "Song for Bringing a Child into the World" to the cynical, knowing "How to Write the Great American Indian Novel." Permeated by the Indian's deep awareness and appreciation of nature's beauty and rhythms, these poems deal with themes of tradition and continuity, the Indians' place in contemporary society, love, loss, memory, alienation, and many other topics.Taken together, these poems offer an intimate, revealing record of the Native American response to the world, from time-honored chants and songs to the musings of urban Indian poets coming to grips with twentieth-century America.

    Using her training as a librarian and archivist, Geller collects her mother's documents, diaries, and photographs into a single suitcase and begins on a journey of confronting her family's history and the decisions she's been forced to make, a journey that will end at her mother's home: the Navajo reservation. Geller masterfully intertwines wrenching prose with archival documents to create a deeply moving narrative of loss and inheritance that pays homage to our pasts, traditions, heritage, the family we are given, and the family we choose.

    Erdrich applies her rich inventive voice and fierce wit to the deforming effects of harassment and oppression. Little Big Bully begins with a question asked of a collective and troubled we - how did we come to this? In answer, this book offers personal myth, American and Native American contexts, and allegories driven by women's resistance to narcissists, stalkers, and harassers. These poems are immediate, personal, political, cultural, even futuristic object lessons. What is truth now? Who are we now? How do we find answers through the smoke of human destructiveness? The past for Indigenous people, ecosystem collapse from near-extinction of bison, and the present epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women underlie these poems. Here, survivors shout back at useless cautionary tales with their own courage and visions of future worlds made well.

    Its illustrative and popular material promote a deeper appreciation of different themes and approaches. Complete works that have become classics in the field, combined with ones from the modern era, make this collection rich in historical and theoretical context. Selections of non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and drama, include works by Paula Gunn Allen, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Carter Revard, Leslie Marmon Silko, Sherman Alexie, Kimberly Blaeser, Peter Blue Cloud, Louise Erdrich, Scott N. Momaday, Simon Ortiz, and many more. An effective introduction to Native American Literature for readers interested in this area of writing.Contents:Nonfiction. Postmodernism, Native American literature, and the real : the Silko-Erdrich Controversy by Susan Pérez CastilloThe American Indian fiction writers : cosmopolitanism, nationalism, the third world, and First Nation sovereignty by Elizabeth Cook-LynnIndian humor by Vine Deloria, Jr.The Ghost Dance War by Charles Eastman OhiyesaThe sacred hoop : a contemporary perspective by Paula Gunn AllenThe man made of word by N. Scott MomadayDecolonializing criticism : reading dialectics and dialogics in Native American literatures by David L. MooreTowards a national Indian literature : cultural authenticity in nationalism by Simon J. OrtizHistory, myth, and identity among Osages and other peoples by Carter RevardThe woman who loved a snake : orality in Mabel McKay's stories by Greg SarrisLanguage and literature from a Pueblo perspective by Leslie Marmon SilkoAn old-time Indian attack conducted in two parts : Part one, imitation "Indian" poemsbyPart two, Gary Snyder's Turtle IslandIntroduction : only the beginning by Brian Swann. Fiction. The approximate size of my favorite tumor ; This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona by Sherman AlexieSwimming upstream by Beth BrantA good chance ; The power of horses by Elizabeth Cook-LynnThe red convertible by Louise ErdrichUnfinished business by Eric GansworthAunt Parnetta's electric blisters by Diane GlancyDeer woman by Paula Gunn AllenSleeping in rain by Gordon HenryAunt Moon's young man by Linda HoganAs it was in the beginning by Pauline E. JohnsonBorders ; A seat in the garden by Thomas KingThe hawk is hungry by D'Arcy McNickleVeteran's dance by Jim NorthrupThe killing of a state cop by Simon J. OrtizBlessed sunshine by Louis OwensReport to the nation : repossessing Europe by Carter RevardHow I got to be queen by Greg SarrisThe man to send rain clouds ; Tony's story ; Yellow woman by Leslie Marmon SilkoThe disposal of Mary Joe's children by Mary TallMountainAll the colors of sunset by Luci TapahonsoThe warriors by Anna Lee WaltersThe soft-hearted Sioux by Zitkala-Sa. Poetry. The business of fancydancing ; Capital punishment ; Defending Walt Whitman ; The exaggeration of despair ; How to write the great American Indian novel ; Crazy Horse speaks by Sherman AlexieDear world ; Kopis'taya, a gathering of spirits ; Soundings by Paula Gunn AllenLiving history ; Rewriting your life ; Rituals : yours, and mine ; Where was I that day by Kimberly BlaeserBear : a totem dance as seen by Raven ; The old man's lazy ; Rattle ; To-ta Ti-om ; Turtle ; Yellowjacket ; Drum ; Reflections on milkweed by Peter Blue CloudAbove the line ; Blessing the waters ; Copal, red blood : Chiapas, 1998 by Joseph BruchacToday was a bad day like TB by ChrystosSalmon egg puller, $2.15 an hour by Nora DauenhaurCaptivity ; Indian boarding school : the runaways ; Jacklight ; Old man Potchikoo ; Dear John Wayne ; Turtle Mountain Reservation by Louise ErdrichShe had some horses ; Transformations ; I give you back ; Call it fear ; Eagle poem ; The woman hanging from the thirteenth floor window ; Grace ; The woman who fell from the sky by Joy HarjoBlessing ; Song for my name ; Bamboo ; Celebration : birth of a colt ; Drought ; The new apartment, Minneapolis ; The truth is ; Elk song ; Geraniums ; Heritage ; It must be ; Map ; Morning : the world in the lake by Linda HoganAkwesasne ; Legacy ; Sweetgrass ; The tell me I am lost ; Wild strawberry ; Wolf "aunt" by Maurice KennyWho am I by Joyce carlEtta MandrakeAngle of geese ; The bear ; At risk ; December 29, 1980 : Wounded Knee Creek ; The colors of night ; The eagle-feather fan by N. Scott MomadayBend in the river ; The creation, according to coyote ; Dry root in a wash ; My father's song ; A story of how a wall stands ; The boy and coyote by Simon J. OrtizAnd don't be deaf to the singing beyond ; Driving in Oklahoma ; In Kansas ; An eagle nation ; What the eagle fan says ; Wazhazhe grandmother by Carter RevardI expected my skin and my blood to ripen ; If I am too brown or too white for you ; Three thousand dollar death song by Wendy RoseIndian song : survival ; Untitled ; Untitled, from Ceremony ; Storytelling ; Story from Bear County ; Toe'osh : a Laguna coyote story ; When sun came to Riverwoman by Leslie Marmon SilkoGood grease ; The last wolf ; There is no word for goodbye ; Matmiya by Mary TallMountainBlue horses rush in ; In praise of Texas ; Light a candle ; Raisin eyes by Luci TapahonsoChristmas comes to Moccasin Flat ; Surviving ; Thanksgiving at Snake Butte ; Snow country weavers ; Riding the earthboy 40 by James WelchDream of rebirth ; For Heather, entering Kindergarten ; In the longhouse, Oneida Museum ; Black eagle child quarterly by Roberta Hill WhitemanThe first dimensions of skunk ; Winter of the salamander ; The language of weather ; Morning talking mother ; The significance of a water animal ; Nothing could take away the bear-king's image by Ray Young BearDrama. Harold of Orange : a screenplay by Gerald Vizenor

    Rilke is unquestionably the most significant and compelling poet of romantic transformation, of spiritual quest, that the twentieth century has known. His poems of ecstatic identification with the world exert a seemingly endless fascination for contemporary readers.In Stephen Mitchell’s versions, many readers feel that they have discovered an English rendering that captures the lyric intensity, fluency, and reach of Rilke’s poetry more accurately and convincingly than has ever been done before.Mr. Mitchell is impeccable in his adherence to Rilke’s text, to his formal music, and to the complexity of his thoughts; at the same time, his work has authority and power as poetry in its own right. Few translators of any poet have arrived at the delicate balance of fidelity and originality that Mr. Mitchell has brought off with seeming effortlessness.Originally published: New York : Random House, 1982.

    In his eighteenth collection, Charles Simic, the superb poet of the vaguely ominous sound and the disturbing, potentially significant image, moves closer to the dark heart of history and human behavior.Simic understands the strange interplay between ordinary life and extremes, between reality and imagination, and he writes with absolute purity about those contradictory but simultaneous states of being or feeling: "Everything about you / My life, is both / Make-believe and real."A profoundly important poet for our time, and a stunning book.SECRET HISTORYOf the light in my room:Its mood swings,Dark-morning glooms,Summer ecstasies. Spider on the wall,Lamp burning late,Shoes left by the bed,I'm your humble scribe. Dust balls, simple soulsConferring in the corner.The pearl earring she lost,Still to be found. Silence of falling snow,Night vanishing without trace,Only to return.I'm your humble scribe.

    The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems gathers unpublished works from his last year, including the poem he wrote the day he died, as well as an essential and wide-ranging selection of works from throughout his career. An editorial team including his son Kim Stafford, the poet Naomi Shihab Nye, and the poet, translator, and author Robert Bly collaborated on shaping this book of Stafford's pioneering career in modern poetry. The poems in The Way It Is encompass Stafford's rugged domesticity, the political edge of his irony, and his brave starings-off into emptiness.

    It is in her poetry, however, where she achieves the full extent of her revelation as artist and human. The poems in this first selection from her whole work were written over a period of forty years. They convey a wonderfully energetic alternation of mood, idea, and experience that are part of her unique creative process.

    As an adult, she’s had guns waved in her face near Standing Rock, and felt their silent threat on the concealed-carry campus where she teaches. And she has always known that in this she is not alone. As a Métis woman, she is no stranger to the violence enacted on the bodies of indigenous women, on indigenous land, and the ways it is hidden, ignored, forgotten.In Carry, Jensen maps her personal experience onto the historical, exploring how history is lived in the body and redefining the language we use to speak about violence in America. In the title chapter, Jensen connects the trauma of school shootings with her own experiences of racism and sexual assault on college campuses. "The Worry Line" explores the gun and gang violence in her neighborhood the year her daughter was born. "At the Workshop" focuses on her graduate school years, during which a workshop classmate repeatedly killed off thinly veiled versions of her in his stories. In "Women in the Fracklands", Jensen takes the listener inside Standing Rock during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and bears witness to the peril faced by women in regions overcome by the fracking boom.In prose at once forensic and deeply emotional, Toni Jensen shows herself to be a brave new voice and a fearless witness to her own difficult history - as well as to the violent cultural landscape in which she finds her coordinates. With each chapter, Carry reminds us that surviving in one’s country is not the same as surviving one’s country.