Allison Hedge Coke is a prolific and acclaimed Indigenous writer
who’s been discussed before on this blog. http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2011/09/books-of-interest-by-writers-of_27.html
Her own books of poetry and memoir include the American Book Award
winner, Dog Road Woman, popular
memoir, Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer,
and two Wordcraft Writer of the Year winners, Off Season City Pipe and Blood
Run. Hedge Coke is also known for her fine work in editing series and
anthologies of Indigenous writers, most recently and notably SING: Indigenous Poetry of the Americas,
which was the first anthology of Indigenous writing from all the Americas.
One of the anthologies Hedge Coke edited in 2009 was Effigies, a strong collection of
chapbooks from emerging Alaskan Native and Pacific Islander poets. Now, she has
returned with a new collection of chapbooks from five emerging Indigenous poets
of the continental United States, Effigies
II: An Anthology of New Indigenous Writing Mainland North & South United
States, 2014, from Salt Publications. Effigies
II contains the poems of Lara Mann (Choctaw), Ungelbah Davila (Diné), Kateri
Menominee (Anishinaabe), Kristi Leora (Onondaga), and Laura Da’ (Shawnee).
Ann Waldman says of this anthology, “Allison Hedge
Coke has done it again, with her keen ear and eye: brought powerful new Native
women's voices to our attention. Rigorous, powerful, brave, haunting, spirited.”
LeAnne Howe also praises it. “These poems, fresh effigies carved by
five young Native women cracked open my heart.
Read them when alone carefully swaddled in a warm blanket, or read them
aloud at the kitchen table to all your relations, past and future. But read them.”
The variety of poetic voices in this anthology is refreshing.
These Native women’s voices are a powerful addition to the growing body of
robust diversity that is modern, published Indigenous poetry (for the tribes
have been voicing poetry for millennia). The poets of Effigies II bring their
voices in the whispers, murmurs, fierce shouts, curses, blessings, lullabies,
cries of passion, tears, and mourning. The breadth of life is to be found in
these spirited offerings.
Although the poets in Effigies
II are emerging poets coming into their own, the work in these pages is
sure, deft, full of telling detail, rich in evocative imagery, and ringing with
the music of language enriched by drawing on multiple heritages and cultures. These
poems demand attention—Mann’s bittersweet tales of searching for roots for
family and self; Davilah’s explorations of female sexuality, empowerment and
exploitation; Menominee’s travels through ancient history and fairy tale with a
postmodern sensibility; Leora’s work linking the modern world and its future with
its beginnings through geologic process and creation stories; and the poems of Da’,
which grieve for the atrocities, betrayals, and losses inflicted on her people.
Hedge Coke’s sure hand as editor can be seen in the ordering and
juxtapositions which allow each poet’s work to feed and support that of the
others. I highly recommend this collection to all with interest in new
Indigenous voices and in a more nuanced approach to the idea of Indigenous writing,
as well as to anyone who just loves to read lucid, lyrical, enchanting, and
powerful poetry.
As usual, I suggest you order the book from the small press
publisher, Salt Publications, which has a whole series of Indigenous books, Earthworks. Small press and university publishers bring most of the diversity in
literature to the page. Without them, we would have a tiny handful
of very famous writers of color published and no one else. If you value diverse
literature, please support the presses that make it possible. http://saltpublishing.com/shop/proddetail.php?prod=9781844718955
As part of the whole #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement, I will devote a month of twice-weekly posts to my long-running Books of Interest by Writers of Color series while recuperating from some surgery mid-July to mid-August (because I'd already planned this and because I just think it's that important, so I'm going to do it anyway). During that month, I may have some extra posts by other writers and critics featuring yet more #diverselit. So stand by for some remarkable writers that you may never have heard of before.
Linda - Thank you for this post about Allison's _Effigies II_. If you can fit me in this summer, I would be thrilled if you'd say some words about my new chapbook, Worn Cities, to be published by Finishing Line Press. Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Denise Low and Joe Bruchac have provided blubs, which I will be glad to email to you.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Alice Azure
Mysteries are a good read but actually are disappointed broken trusts... I like your ideas about this book too... discount theater tickets
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