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URL https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/journal/Indigenous-Poetry-Examples-1386886648 IMAGE Untitled (Blue and Gold) by Dyani White Hawk CONTENT This is for the Indigenous Epigraph Poetry Challenge in All the poems come from the following https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/144560/native-american-poetry-and-culture A last note before presenting these poems. They are merely selections. , I used an alphabetical structure, A to Z , first come first serve. Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World By Sherman Alexie of Spokane/Coeur d’Alene The morning air is all awash with angels—Richard Wilbur, “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” The eyes open to a blue telephone In the bathroom of this five-star hotel. I wonder whom I should call? A plumber, Proctologist, urologist, or priest? Who is blessed among us and most deserves The first call? I choose my father because He’s astounded by bathroom telephones. I dial home. My mother answers. “Hey, Ma,” I say, “Can I talk to Poppa?” She gasps, And then I remember that my father Has been dead for nearly a year. “Shit, Mom,” I say. “I forgot he’s dead. I’m sorry— How did I forget?” “It’s okay,” she says. “I made him a cup of instant coffee This morning and left it on the table— Like I have for, what, twenty-seven years— And I didn’t realize my mistake Until this afternoon.” My mother laughs At the angels who wait for us to pause During the most ordinary of days And sing our praise to forgetfulness Before they slap our souls with their cold wings. Those angels burden and unbalance us. Those fucking angels ride us piggyback. Those angels, forever falling, snare us And haul us, prey and praying, into dust. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52923/grief-calls-us-to-the-things-of-this-world Blues-ing on the Brown Vibe By Esther Belin of Diné (Navajo) I. And Coyote struts down East 14th feeling good looking good feeling the brown melting into the brown that loiters rapping with the brown in front of the Native American Health Center talking that talk of relocation from tribal nation of recent immigration to the place some call the United States home to many dislocated funky brown ironic immigration more accurate tribal nation to tribal nation and Coyote sprinkles corn pollen in the four directions to thank the tribal people indigenous to what some call the state of California the city of Oakland for allowing use of their land. II. And Coyote travels by Greyhound from Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA thru Dinétah to Oakland, California, USA laughing Interstate 40 is cluttered with RVs from as far away as Maine traveling and traveling to perpetuate the myth Coyote kicks back for most of the ride amused by the constant herd of tourists amazed by the mythic Indian they create at a pit stop in Winslow Coyote trades a worn beaded cigarette lighter for roasted corn from a middle-aged Navajo woman squatting in front of a store and Coyote squats alongside the woman talking that talk of bordertown blues of reservation discrimination blues-ing on the brown vibe a bilagáana snaps a photo the Navajo woman stands holding out her hand requesting some of her soul back instead she replaces her soul with a worn picture of George Washington on a dollar bill and Coyote starts on another ear of corn climbing onto the Greyhound the woman still squatting waiting tired of learning not to want waits there for the return of all her pieces. III. And Coyote wanders right into a Ponca sitting at the Fruitvale Bart station next to the Ponca is a Seminole Coyote struts up to the two “Where ya’all from?” the Ponca replies “Oooklahooma” pause the Seminole silent watches a rush of people climb in and out of the train headed for Fremont the Seminole stretches his arms up and back stiff from the wooden benches pause he pushes his lips out toward the Ponca slowly gesturing that he too is from Oklahoma Coyote wanders “where ’bouts?” the Ponca replies “Ponnca City” pause the Seminole replies “Seminoole” Coyote gestures to the Ponca “You Ponca?” the Ponca nods his head in affirmation Coyote nods his head in content to the Seminole Coyote asks “You Seminole?” pause the Seminole now watching some kids eating frozen fruit bars nods his head and Coyote shares his smokes with the two and ten minutes later they travel together on the Richmond train headed for Wednesday night dinner at the Intertribal Friendship House. IV. And Coyote blues-ing on the urban brown funk vibe wanders in and out of existence tasting the brown rusty at times worn bitter from relocation. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53453/blues-ing-on-the-brown-vibe Prayer to Fix the Affections By Gladys Cardiff of Eastern Band of Cherokee O Ancient One, your web hangs down from the pines. I am of the Owl clan. I have been to water, my dress is of red clay. He moves at the edge of you, binds us with your threads. The center of his soul shall be my soul’s center. Our paths shall be white forever. Where we move the paths from every direction shall recognize each other. We are one never to be parted. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53171/prayer-to-fix-the-affections A Mighty Pulverizing Machine By Laura Da’ of Shawnee (Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma) To each orphaned child—so long as you remain close enough to walk to your living kin you will dance, feast, feel community in food. This cannot stand. Eighty acres allotted. To each head of household—so long as you remember your tribal words for village you will recollect that the grasses still grow and the rivers still flow. So long as you teach your children these words they will remember as well. This we cannot allow. One hundred and sixty acres allotted. To each elder unable to till or hunt—so long as your old and injurious habits sing out over the drum or flicker near the fire you cripple our reward. We seek to hasten your end. Eighty acres allotted. To each widowed wife—so long as you can make your mark, your land may be leased. A blessing on your mark when you sign it and walk closer to your favored white sister. Eighty acres allotted. To each full blood—so long as you have an open hand, we shall fill it with a broken ploughshare. One hundred and sixty acres allotted. To each half blood, each quarter strain—so long as you yearn for the broken ploughshare, you will be provided a spade honed to razor in its place. When every acre of your allotment has been leased or sold, you will turn it on yourself. From that date begins our real and permanent progress. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147037/a-mighty-pulverizing-machine Anonymous Is Coyote Girl By Anita Endrezze of Yaqui From a newspaper photo and article about my godfather, James Moreno, East Los Angeles, 1950. (Three police officers took a brutal beating in a wild free-for-all with a family, including three young girls. From left, James, 19, and Alex, 22, in jail after the fracas on the porch of their home at 3307 Hunter.) Jimmy is staring off the page, hands in his pockets. A four-button dark shirt. No bruises, but he looks dazed. Alex wears a leather coat and a polka-dot shirt, which is in itself a crime. Nowhere is there a photo of a young girl with a face carved like a racetrack saint, eyes with all bets called off, grinning like a coyote. (Officer Parks had his glasses broken with his own sap and was thrown through a window.) Jimmy and Alex are my dad’s cousins, lived on Boyle Heights and tortillas. Mama says the cops always harassed them, those niños from East L.A., driving their low-riders, chrome shinier than a cop’s badge. And why wasn’t Coyote Girl mentioned, that round-armed girl with a punch like a bag of bees, a girl with old eyes, her lips cracking open as she saw the cop sailing through glass, boiling out of Boyle Heights, skidding on the sidewalk, flat as a tortilla? (The officers received severe cuts and bruises, were treated at a hospital and released in time to jail the youths, who were charged with assault with a deadly weapon.) Two years later, I was born and Jimmy entered the church, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, watching the christening. Four drops of water, like popped-off wafer-thin buttons, fell on my head. No. He never showed up that day or any other. My spiritual guardian must’ve been there in spirit only. He didn’t know nada about Got and no one knows where he is today, but I think you could find him at the end of a knife. Or in the slash of the z in ¡La Raza! the dark blood reds of graffiti. Or tomatoes grown in old coffee cans by a white-haired man sitting in the sun in a dark shirt, next to an old woman growing younger every day as I tell her story, my story, our story with all the grace and power of a deadly weapon. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53430/anonymous-is-coyote-girl … Bee By Eric Gansworth of Onondaga Nation (Onondaga Nation) I stood in a longhouse with a woman who may or may not be Mohawk. Some shift their opinions about her like meteorologists, as if her blood were a storm system tracked in its comings and goings. But the father of her two sons was, without question, Seneca. We knew that, in Haudenosaunee country, a father is to some degree irrelevant, that her own shifting identity would impact her sons’ lives like a gene vulnerable to betrayal, causing certain, terminal conditions. She waited on an elder she called Steam (warning I was not to call the elder woman by that name). Steam (not Steam) would observe the boys, understand their natures, give them their Creator names defining their lives during the next ceremony. I confessed my namelessness, confessed my longhouse- and fluency- deficient community, and confessed that my clan mother, three hours away, did not know me well enough to give me a name, confessed my community followed a more casual ceremony. You find your name after a social misstep, a dubious facial feature, a birth defect. Names offer the name-givers comfort, that your challenge is harder than theirs, no matter the truth. Our names are a convoluted toughening of our skins. My name is not like Steam (no one is forbidden to use it). No one calls me Batman because of my status, my utility belt, my impressive batpole, my agility, my muscles, my profile in spandex, my virtues, but because I wore the cape to an older age than I should have, and could continue to wear it now, as that shit is not going away any time soon. Even kids who only know Christian Bale or Michael Keaton, lurking in latex and leather hood, still think Batman is my name. And this is why I have no memory for when or how you became the Bumblebee, what it means, beyond the literal. You soar in gardens, spend days ensuring growth, and if metaphors are at work here, this one seems true enough to keep you in amber wings, fuzzy yellow rings, black lacquer torso, and sensitive antennae. What metaphor suits the night I left on the Amtrak for Chicago, past 1:00 a.m., while you stood on the platform, watching those cars pull out, the night I wanted to leap from the train, stay? I cannot invent new names for the ways we slow, struggle, attempt to maintain the illusion of futures without measure, defy actuary numbers and because I have gone closer to the light than you have, the story is easier to craft and finesse than it should be. Pollination trails are smaller than those I’m forced to fly in, and lying in Little Rock, Santa Fe, Manhattan, Minneapolis, Seattle, hotel rooms, the ellipse of your name trail winds me home, waiting, dusted in pollen and history. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/146712/-bee Fieldwork By Joan Naviyuk Kane of Inupiaq Another day of heat- strangers continue to wobble across the horizon, bringing drought when instead we should have deluge. I steep snow-lichen in water I drew from a lake which has since gone dry. At sea few understood me, as though I induced a sickness that deafened, then healed. As before, I predict lies, to be pushed from the boat time and time again. Nevertheless, I expect to get by while their widowers· seek refuge with their provident families; perhaps a storm will pile fish at their doors when the red tide rises, perhaps they will not follow as we move, moon into moon, under another sky. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/158604/fieldwork How Soon By Gordon Henry Jr. of White Earth Chippewa The story goes from in a rainfall to sister walking a field browned autumn. And when she arrives winter has come, so the old man rises from his chair, picks up matches, pipes and tools, and walks out to begin again. The sculptures grow by the day, birds in ice, recognizable eagles, a bear who began as a man in a moment of dance. He does this in ice, all winter carving at dawn, carving at dusk. And sister after walking a field browned autumn, arrives, watches from the east window, waits, goes out to him in spring, taps him on the shoulder and points to the pools of water he's standing over. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147311/how-soon Marshlands By Emily Pauline Johnson of Mohawk A thin wet sky, that yellows at the rim, And meets with sun-lost lip the marsh’s brim. The pools low lying, dank with moss and mould, Glint through their mildews like large cups of gold. Among the wild rice in the still lagoon, In monotone the lizard shrills his tune. The wild goose, homing, seeks a sheltering, Where rushes grow, and oozing lichens cling. Late cranes with heavy wing, and lazy flight, Sail up the silence with the nearing night. And like a spirit, swathed in some soft veil, Steals twilight and its shadows o’er the swale. Hushed lie the sedges, and the vapours creep, Thick, grey and humid, while the marshes sleep. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52095/marshlands Ghost Dance By Sara Littlecrow-Russell of Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe) and Han-Naxi Métis Two hundred seventy Ghost Dancers died dreaming That humanity would drown In a flood of White sins. Then the renewed earth Would reclaim city and town, Leaving only Ghost Dancers And those who lived by nature’s laws. History books say the threat is gone. The Ghost Dance died with the ancestors— Wovoka and his sacred dream Were destroyed. Each time it rains, I go out to the sidewalk, Where the tree roots Have broken the concrete Listening to the water’s whispering: “It is coming soon.” URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53461/ghost-dance Love Poem to a Butch Woman By Deborah A. Miranda of Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen This is how it is with me: so strong, I want to draw the egg from your womb and nourish it in my own. I want to mother your child made only of us, of me, you: no borrowed seed from any man. I want to re-fashion the matrix of creation, make a human being from the human love that passes between our bodies. Sweetheart, this is how it is: when you emerge from the bedroom in a clean cotton shirt, sleeves pushed back over forearms, scented with cologne from an amber bottle—I want to open my heart, the brightest aching slit of my soul, receive your pearl. I watch your hands, wait for the sign that means you’ll touch me, open me, fill me; wait for that moment when your desire leaps inside me. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53926/love-poem-to-a-butch-woman The Dice Changer By Duane Niatum of S’Klallam Raven steals your name for an autumn joke: buries it along with you under the broadest hemlock known to squirrel or chipmunk. He croaks it’s too bad you were awake for the event. He accuses you of boring him with the same old questions over and over. You attempt revolt to prove his rattle is cracked and as brittle as his song. Raven clacks his beak like a trap and hollers your face is a mask splitting down the middle and madness has found a home. All stink and fur dung, the black master quips you had a chance to flee but forgot where and what direction. Now he blurts your pain must jump in the river, the river thrash like the wind, the mountain awaken you to the currents of the sea. Raven hops away and chuckles as the dark chatters, flips you over to your earth shadow. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53165/the-dice-changer Grandmothers Land By William Oandasan of Yuki around the house stood an orchard of plum, apple and pear a blackwalnut tree, one white pine, groves of white oak and willow clumps the home of Jessie was largely redwood blood, flesh and bone sprouted inside her womb of redwood for five generations the trees now stand unpruned and wild after relocating so many years before the War the seeds of Jessie have returned afternoon sunlight on the field breezes moving grass and leaves memories with family names wait within the earth, the mountains, the valley, the field, the trees URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53257/grandmothers-land Lear’s Wife By Elise Paschen of Osage ... if thou shouldst not be glad, I would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb, Sepulch’ring an adult’ress. — William Shakespeare, King Lear He faked my death, set up this ranch far from my three daughters. Suburban hellhole. With bracelet on ankle, house- arrest. At noon the bully sun shoulders a ripe moon. In the dark soaps reign. The anchors will often flash their glitterati weddings. Not one daughter has birthed an heir. In vitro — be damned. I hose the lawn and count the cars like fish slipping their shiny chrome along asphalt. Which sparrow missed? Cordelia — my gutted heart. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/90674/lears-wife Buckeye as You Are By Wendy Rose of Hopi and Miwok September 11, 2001 They walk past you weeping for the leaves that burnt & fell, the wood exposed like bone, sculpture that suddenly emerges from white haze. You old fortune-teller, you could have told them in their vibrant grief whispering through the night wind your breath held in your heart like the trembling promise of tomorrow, just before dawn there was no pain you are the wood not the leaf, falling is not falling but offering. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53427/buckeye-as-you-are Now I'm a Woman By Cedar Sigo of Suquamish When you hear the knives ring Turn the page. I wonder why I am not Myself of late, ridiculous glass edges Turn back on themselves And soon reveal The hand of an apprentice And godforsaken embarrassing torch, Stormy back hallways Out of the black and wooden theatres. Crystal Waters plus her driver Plus her entourage is still rolling out Of the Sands, Atlantic City On the soundtracks to shows Held over at The Fairmount She is throwing back shots With the mafia. I have learned To take apart this American Songbook And very fortunately as I would take My audience in confidence Threads of gold fall closely together Coming to break us off. At the first of the shows I sang this song And in between I saw him in the hall, What could I tell you? “Someday we’ll build on a hilltop high.” URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54490/now-im-a-woman Battlefield By Mark Turcotte of Ojibwe (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) Back when I used to be Indian I am standing outside the pool hall with my sister. She strawberry blonde. Stale sweat and beer through the open door. A warrior leans on his stick, fingers blue with chalk. Another bends to shoot. His braids brush the green felt, swinging to the beat of the jukebox. We move away. Hank Williams falls again in the backseat of a Cadillac. I look back. A wind off the distant hills lifts my shirt, brings the scent of wounded horses. URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/40865/battlefield And I wonder where you are By Tanaya Winder of Duckwater Shoshone Sacred stars blanket a nighttime sky, each light reminds us of the preciousness of life. Your memory lives along the Milky Way, each twinkle saying don’t forget my name. It’s an epidemic, a sickness of the earth, a war we enter as soon as we are birthed. Indigenous women, girls, our two-spirit, too. When did this world start disappearing you? URL https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/155482/and-i-wonder-where-you-are

URL https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/The-Story-Star-1389865978 CONTENT TITLE: The Story Star The Story goes from in a rainfall rains poured from the future cascading down a thick corpse wall good ancestors can't sense their story , is the story, few today call the story is the farthest star the hope way above the shackled hall will truth ever shine bright bright enough to be an eagle's mall I wish I knew, at least for me the eagle will fall by the truth tall and crack all the chi-mookomaan from Richard Murray @HDdeviant For the Indigenous Epigraph Poetry Challenge of @CRLiterature Opening line is from "How Soon" from <Gordon HEnry Jr. > of the White Earth CHippewa https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147311/how-soon cascade- when water slides on rock, not fall in air sense-all perceptibility [see, hear, touch, cognize, or any other] call-shout, proclaim loudly the shackled hall- earth eagle- people with majority white European descent plus said people's culture eagle's mall-bat of staff to hit eagle From Nora Livesay , the Ojibwe People's Dictionary Editor [ https://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/ ] There are three words for 'white person' in the Ojibwe People's Dictionary. waabishkiiwed comes from the verb waabishkiiwe meaning 'to have a pale complexion' - this word is primarily used in Northern regions (Red Lake Reservation and the Canadian Border Lakes areas) wayaabishkiiwed also comes from the verb waabishkiiwe, and is primarily used in south of Red Lake. It means the same thing; just pronounced slightly differently. gichi-mookomaan (or chi-mookomaan for short) is an older word used through the entire dialect, and references the long calvary knives that soldiers once carried. A speaker from White Earth would find all three words understandable, and would likely use one of the last two, depending on personal preference. If you like my craft, I have a tip jar https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/tier/Tip-Jar-to-HDdeviant-902770076 Poetry Gallery https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/gallery/84827787/poetry Literature Gallery https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/gallery/81311721/my-tales-or-poetry #indigenous #inspired #epigraph #poetry #IIEP2026 #hddeviant #richardmurray #richardmurrayhumblr #thestorystar #ojibwe #crliterature

POST https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/12924-rmnewsletter-5th-format-10112026/ my comment https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/12924-rmnewsletter-5th-format-10112026/#findComment-83767 @Pioneer1 thank you for sharing your personal history :) it is an AI voice, the text is mine:) I place my voice in my audio books. These don't warrant that. public lynchings were common in the north too, the populace of black people in the usa was at one time circa 90% southern so the majority of terrorist acts from whties to blacks in the usa was southern, by population density. but i argue, the north had a greater rate considering the smaller black populace or larger percentage of white people outside the south. Yes, public execution on t.v. is rare in the usa historically, but not public execution. Do you get my point? I Argue in the past 150 years , more humans have been publicly executed in the usa than Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea combined by a far ddistance, and the usa in the past 500 years between indigenous people side native americans have been publicly executed in a quantity that saudi arabia+north korea+ iran in that same time frame can never reach in the next 400 to 500 years. I am 100% certain the iran's,/north korea's/saudi arabias had more televised executions than the usa from the 1960s onwards, remember, all three of those countries were made in the 1900s, they didn't exist in the 1800s and before and were enslaved to empires iran the ottoman, north korea, japan and saudi arabia the ottoman. Is the usa increasingly violent or merely wha tit has always been?:) When I see the history of the usa i dont see the changes that others see. JAmes forten was a black business owner before the usa was founded and after the usa was founded. Was it rare to see black fiscal wealth then yes, is it still rare to see black fiscal wealth now? yes. The existence of black peopel who have reached great heights fiscally or governmentally isn't unknown. People say th eusa was better in the 1960s comapred to 1865 but ALice and many other black people wer eenslaved to whites three years before I have a dream speech. People say jim crow is over and yet all back communities from inside. the big cities to towns throughout the south or spare cities beyond the south are being negatively influenced by jim crow laws or elgislators . so, have things changed? the abuse has never changed. the qualities of the abuse have but that isn't change for black people. and being positive into the future, the sign of change isn't when black people aren't being hung , it is when black peopel are less at the mercy of white terro which i argue most black people in the usa still are. yes, al sharpton, obama, clarence thomas are all well and safe , but that is the rarity like james forten, the average black person in the usa is still in danger of white terror and until that changes, no matter if the terror is being burned alive or raised rent to kick out , it is still white terror. The majority of black people is the key to determining the stateof the black populace in the usa, not the minority of black people from forten to the martha's vineyard folk to talented tenthers and historical black college presidents to lebron james and oprah winfrey and cornell west. and to a far lesser extent myself.