Tags
#readNDN, #readwomen, Allison Hedge Coke, American Life in Poetry, Bee Poems, Burn, Cell Traffic, Cherokee, Coffee House Press, Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum of Archaic Media, Heid E. Erdrich, Huron, If Bees Were Few, MadHat Press, Metis, Michigan State University Press, Natalie Diaz, Native American Heritage Month, native american poetry, Native American Women's Poetry, Off-Season City Pipe, Ojibwe, Pen Ten interview, Poetry Foundation, Stung, The Change, University of Arizona Press, University of Minnesota, women poets
Award-winning poet and activist Allison Adelle Hedge Coke (Huron/Metis/mixed Cherokee, SE Native) writes the type of poetry that is seared into the mind like a daguerreotype at the shortest exposure. Fittingly, her latest collection is titled Burn (MadHat Press, 2017) and is an illustrated poetic endeavor. How cool is that?
Haven’t actually got my hands on it yet, but I hope to love it as much as Dog Road Woman (Coffee House Press, 1997), or Off-Season City Pipe (Coffee House, 2005).
Trust me, you’ll love her work. Here’s “The Change,” straight outta Dog Road Woman, hosted at the Poetry Foundation archives.
So you’ve heard me talk about Heid E. Erdrich (Ojibwe) before. ICYMI, I highly recommend her 2012 collection Cell Traffic (Univ. of AZ Press). The jury is still out on her latest Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum of Archaic Media (Michigan State Univ Press). It’s kinda trippy, what with its fairies, QR codes that link to film poems and other weird, but good, shit.
Before you dive into that book, try some of her more earthy work, like “Stung,” from the anthology If Bees Were Few: A Hive of Bee Poems. You’lll want Santa to bring you that one.
And while you’re out there floating in cyberspace, check out this Pen Ten interview with Heid E. and her sister, fellow writer Louise Erdrich, where the ladies answer questions (presented by Natalie Diaz) on writing in general and space for the voices of indigenous women.
