did you guys see the poem from a couple of days ago in poetry dot org’s daily poem it was so good and a treat to read
been thinking about it since i read it
Oh oh oh this is Layli Long Soldier!!! She’s an Oglala Lakota poet, her work is incredible, and she does things like this a lot!!!!
She uses form as a way to destabilize English, as a direct way to respond to and critique colonialism and linguistic colonialism. A lot of her work engages with
Lakota language as well, and very much pounds on the door of all the ways English is limiting, restricting, and destructive to Native American languages, as well as being incredibly unsuited to talking about Native American issues. She feels deeply the injustice of talking about the horrors of
colonialization in a
colonizer’s language, and her poetry is so damn good at expressing that.
The connection between land, language, family, and self is alive in her work, and I cannot recommend her enough.
Her first full-length collection was published in 2017 and is called Whereas. It is, among other things, a scathing and in-depth critique of the Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans, which was signed in 2009 and is essentially a sham document which never actually admits to any wrongdoings nor uses the word “apologize” in the body of the text, and was also not actually directed towards any Native person or peoples. The second half of Long Soldier’s collection just rips the whole thing to shreds. The rest of the collection is a deep exploration of language, motherhood, family, and identity. It’s so, so, so good.
Here are some poems from it!! (I’m sorry for the image quality, my camera and lighting suck).
I’m sure that having protestors outside their house must be uncomfortable for Supreme Court Justices, perhaps even something they wish they could get rid of. But they’ve already made their decision, and now must bring it to term. Maybe this wouldn’t be happening to them if they had been a little more responsible with their earlier behavior.
