by Joy Harjo
WHO DIES AND COMES BACK . . . TO LIFE AGAIN
****
WHO ASCENDS UP INTO THE SKY . . . . . . .
I USED TO BELIEVE ALL THOSE
STORIES
I DON’T ANYMORE.
NOW I WISH. . . . .I COULD
REMEMBER THOSE
COYOTE STORIES. . . . .UNCLE TOLD ME
DUANE NIATUM (1938–), Klallam, is a poet, fiction writer, and editor. After serving in the United States Navy, Niatum earned a PhD from the University of Michigan. Along with his creative works, Niatum served as an editor for Harper & Row’s Native American Authors series. Niatum has been the recipient of many awards and accolades, including the Governor’s Award from the State of Washington, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas, and grants from the Carnegie Fund for Authors and PEN.
Chief Leschi of the Nisqually
He awoke this morning from a strange dream—
Thunderbird wept for him in the blizzard.
Holding him in their circle, Nisqually women
Turn to the river, dance to its song.
He burned in the forest like a red cedar,
His arms fanning blue flames toward
The white men claiming the camas valley
For their pigs and fowl.
Musing over wolf’s tracks vanishing in snow,
The memory of his wives and children
Keeps him mute. Flickering in the dawn fires,
His faith grows roots, tricks the soldiers
Like a fawn, sleeping black as the brush.
They laugh at his fate, frozen as a bat
Against his throat. Still, death will take
Him only to his father’s longhouse,
Past the flaming rainbow door. These bars
Hold but his tired body; he will eat little
And speak less before he hangs.
Center Moon’s Little Brother
I camp in the light of the fox,
Within the singing mirror of night.
Hunt for courage to return to the voice,
Whirling my failures through the meadow
Where I watch my childhood pick
Choke cherries, the women cook salmon
On the beach, my Grandfather sings his song to deer.
When my heart centers inside the necklace
Of fires surrounding his village of white fir,
Sleeping under seven snowy blankets of changes,
I will leave Raven’s cave.
The Art of Clay
The years in the blood keep us naked to the bone.
So many hours of darkness we fail to sublimate.
Light breaks down the days to printless stone.
I sing what I sang before, it’s the dream alone.
We fall like the sun when the moon’s our fate.
The years in the blood keep us naked to the bone.
I wouldn’t reach your hand, if I feared the dark alone;
My heart’s a river, but it is not chilled with hate.
Light breaks down the days to printless stone.
We dance from memory because it’s here on loan.
And as the music stops, nothing’s lost but the date.
The years in the blood keep us naked to the bone.
How round the sky, how the planets drink the unknown.
I gently touch; your eyes show it isn’t late.
Light breaks down the days to printless stone.
What figures in this clay; gives a sharper bone?
What turns the spirit white? Wanting to abbreviate?
The years in the blood keep us naked to the bone.
Light breaks down the days to printless stone.
FRED BIGJIM (1941–), Iñupiaq, is a poet who grew up in Nome, Alaska. Earning graduate degrees from Harvard University and the University of Washington, Bigjim has published several collections of poetry, including Sinrock (1983) and Walk the Wind (1988), as well as non-fiction and fiction works. He has also worked as an educator and an educational counselor for Native American youth.
Spirit Moves
Sometimes I feel you around me,
Primal creeping, misty stillness.
Watching, waiting, dancing.
You scare me.
When I sleep, you visit me
In my dreams,
Wanting me to stay forever.
We laugh and float neatly about.
I saw you once, I think,
At Egavik.
The Eskimos called you a shaman.
I know better, I know you’re
Spirit Moves.
ED EDMO (1946–), Shoshone-Bannock, is a poet, playwright, performer, traditional storyteller, tour guide, and lecturer on Northwest tribal culture. He lectures, holds workshops, and creates dramatic monologues on cultural understanding and awareness, drug and alcohol abuse, and mental health. His poetry collection is These Few Words of Mine (2006).
Indian Education Blues
I sit in your
crowded classrooms
learn how to
read about dick,
jane & spot
but I remember
how to get deer
I remember
how to beadwork
I remember
how to fish
I remember
the stories told
by the old
but spot keeps
showing up &
my report card
is bad
PHILLIP WILLIAM GEORGE (1946–2012), Nez Perce, was a poet, writer, and champion traditional plateau dancer. His poem “Proviso” had been translated into eighteen languages worldwide and won multiple honors, including being performed on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Dick Cavett Show. In addition to his poetry, George also wrote, produced, and narrated Season of Grandmothers for the Public Broadcasting Corporation.
Battle Won Is Lost
They said, “You are no longer a lad.”
I nodded.
They said, “Enter the council lodge.”
I sat.
They said, “Our lands are at stake.”
I scowled.
They said, “We are at war.”
I hated.
They said, “Prepare red war symbols.”
I painted.
They said, “Count coups.”
I scalped.
They said, “You’ll see friends die.”
I cringed.
They said, “Desperate warriors fight best.”
I charged.
They said, “Some will be wounded.”
I bled.
They said, “To die is glorious.”
They lied.
IMAIKALANI KALAHELE (1946–), Kanaka Maoli, is a poet, artist, and musician. Writing in a combination of English, Pidgin (Hawaiian Creole English), and ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, Kalahele seeks to honor ancestral knowledge while challenging colonial injustice. In addition to his poetry and art book Kalahele (2002), his poems have been published in several anthologies, including Mālama: Hawaiian Land and Water and ʻōiwi: a native hawaiian journal, and his art has been exhibited throughout the Pacific. The 2019 Honolulu Bienniale recognized his prolific contributions to art in Hawaiʻi by naming the event “Making Wrong Right Now” after a line from his poem “Manifesto.”
Make Rope
get this old man
he live by my house
he just make rope
every day
you see him making rope
if
he not playing his ukulele
or
picking up his mo‘opuna
he making
rope
and nobody wen ask him
why?
how come?
he always making
rope
morning time . . . making rope
day time . . . making rope
night time . . . making rope
all the time .
. . making rope
must get enuf rope
for make Hōkūle‘a already
most time
he no talk
too much
to nobody
he just sit there
making rope
one day
we was partying by
his house
you know
playing music
talking stink
about the other
guys them
I was just
coming out of the bushes
in back the house
and
there he was
under the mango tree
making rope
and he saw me
all shame
I look at him and said
“Aloha Papa”
he just look up
one eye
and said
“Howzit! What? Party?
Alright!”
I had to ask
“E kala mai, Papa
I can ask you one question?”
“How come
everyday you make rope
at the bus stop
you making rope
outside McDonald’s drinking coffee
you making rope.
How come?”
he wen
look up again
you know
only the eyes move kine
putting one more
strand of coconut fiber
on to the kaula
he make one
fast twist
and said
“The Kaula of our people
is 2,000 years old
boy
some time . . . good
some time . . . bad
some time . . . strong
some time . . . sad
but most time
us guys
just like this rope
one by one
strand by strand
we become
the memory of our people
and
we still growing
so
be proud
do good
and
make rope
boy
make rope.”
MICHAEL MCPHERSON (1947–2008), Kanaka Maoli, was a poet, publisher, editor, and lawyer. Interested in cultivating and maintaining a literature that was uniquely Hawaiian, McPherson wrote poetry, founded Xenophobia Press, and published the journal HAPA. In 1988, McPherson received a certificate of merit from the Hawai‘i House of Representatives, acknowledging his work and scholarship on Hawaiian literature. As a lawyer, McPherson worked on Native Hawaiian claims in environmental law and Hawaiian land use.
Clouds, Trees & Ocean, North Kauai
In Hā‘ena’s cerulean sky today
the cirrus clouds converge upon
a point beyond the summer horizon, all
hurtling backward: time
drawn from this world as our
master inhales.
The ironwoods lean down their dark needles
to the beach, long strings of
broken white coral and shells that ebb
to the north and west, and wait
dreaming the bent blue backs of waves.
MAHEALANI PEREZ-WENDT (1947–), Kanaka Maoli, is a poet, writer, and activist. Her poetry was recognized through the University of Hawai‘i’s Elliot Cades Award for Literature in 1993. She is the author of the poetry collection Uluhaimalama (2007) and her poems have been published in numerous anthologies. Perez-Wendt also has an extensive history of community engagement, formerly serving as executive director of Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, serving as the first Native Hawaiian board member of the Native American Rights Fund, and working extensively with prison issues and sovereignty restoration.
Uluhaimalama
We have gathered
With manacled hands;
We have gathered
With shackled feet;
We have gathered
In the dust of forget
Seeking the vein
Which will not collapse.
We have bolted
The gunner’s fence,
Given sacrament
On blood-stained walls.
We have linked souls
End to end
Against the razor’s slice.
We have kissed brothers
In frigid cells,
Pressing our mouths
Against their ice-hard pain.
We have feasted well
On the stones of this land:
We have gathered
In dark places
And put down roots.
We have covered the Earth,
Bold flowers for her crown.
We have climbed
The high wire of treason–
We will not fall.
WAYNE KAUMUALII WESTLAKE (1947–1984), Kanaka Maoli, was born on Maui and raised on the island of O‘ahu. With Richard Hamasaki, he created and edited the literary journal Seaweeds & Constructions from 1976 to 1983. His posthumous collection, Westlake: Poems by Wayne Kaumualii Westlake (1947–1984), edited by Mei-Li M. Siy and Richard Hamasaki (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2009), includes nearly 200 poems, many previously unpublished.
DANA NAONE HALL (1949–), Kanaka Maoli, founded Hui Alanui o Mākena, an organization that successfully prevented the destruction of the Piʻilani Trail, a part of the road that once encircled Maui built by the aliʻi nui Piʻilani in the sixteenth century; and she has been at the forefront to protect iwi kupuna (ancestral remains) at Honokahua and other sacred burial sites. In addition, she is the editor of Mālama: Hawaiian Land and Water (1985). Her book Life of the Land: Articulations of a Native Writer (2017), a collection of poetry and memoir focused on her activism, won an American Book Award in 2019.
Hawai‘i ’89
for Leahi
The way it is now
few streams still flow
through lo‘i kalo
to the sea.
Most of the water
where we live
runs in ditches alongside
the graves of Chinese bones
where the same crop has burned in the fields
for the last one hundred years.
On another island,
a friend whose father
was born in a pili grass
hale in Kahakuloa,
bought a house on a concrete
pad in Hawai‘i Kai.
For two hundred thousand
he got window frames
out of joint and towel racks
hung crooked on the walls.
He’s one of the lucky ones.
People are sleeping in cars
or rolled up in mats on beaches,
while the lū‘au show hostess
invites the roomful of visitors
to step back in time
to when gods and goddesses
walked the earth.
I wonder what she’s
talking about.
All night, Kānehekili
flashes in the sky
and Moanonuikalehua changes
from a beautiful woman
into a lehua tree
at the sound of the pahu.
It’s true that the man
who swam with the sharks
and kept them away
from the nets full of fish
by feeding them limu kala
is gone,
but we’re still here
like the fragrant white koki‘o
blooming on the long branch
like the hairy leafed nehe
clinging to the dry pu‘u
like the moon high over Ha‘ikū
lighting the way home.
ANDREW HOPE III (1949–2008), Tlingit, was a poet and a Tlingit political activist. Born in Sitka, Alaska, Hope was the cofounder of the Tlingit Clan Conference as well a
s Tlingit Readers, a nonprofit publishing house. He married Iñupiaq poet Elizabeth “Sister Goodwin” Hope. Inspired by the work of Tlingit poet Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Hope used his poetry to help the Tlingit language remain alive in written form.
Spirit of Brotherhood
They sing Onward Christian Soldiers
Down at the ANB Hall
Every year in convention
The kids don’t like that song
They don’t like missionary history
We shove that in the closet nowadays
The church had little to do with
ANB adopting this battle song
William Paul, Sr. introduced it
after he heard it at Lodge 163 of A.F. and A.M.
Portland, Oregon
The Masonic Lodge influence
The song bothers me
That’s no secret
But
My people went into the church to survive
I don’t know what the pioneer days were like
Up here in gold rush Alaska
I listen to the Black church and think about the
music of the Black spirit
the gospel of Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers
Otis Redding and the others
That spirit catches you
When you walk into the meeting and feel like family
You’ll know what I’m saying
HAUNANI-KAY TRASK (1949–), Kanaka Maoli, is a prolific poet, scholar, and political activist and a leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. She is the author of two scholarly monographs, Eros and Power: The Promise of Feminist Theory (1984) and From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi (1993), a foundational text in Hawaiian and Indigenous studies, and has written many influential essays. She has two poetry books, Light in the Crevice Never Seen (1999) and Night Is a Sharkskin Drum (2002). She is a professor emeritus of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she cofounded the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies.
An Agony of Place