Heart Butte, Montana
The unsympathetic wind, how she has evaded me for years now,leaving a guileless shell and no way to navigate. Once when I stoodon a plateau of earth just at the moment before the dangerous,jutting peaks converged upon the sway of grasslands, I almostfound a way back. There, the sky, quite possibly all the elements,caused the rock and soil and vegetation to congregate. Their prayerwas not new and so faint I could hardly discern. Simple remembrances,like a tiny, syncopated chorus calling everyone home: acrossa thousand eastward miles. And what little wind was left at my back.I could not move and then the music was gone.All that was left were the springtime faces of mountains, gazing down,their last patches of snow, luminous. I dreamed of becoming snow melt,gliding down the slope of history and into the valley. With the promise,an assurance, that there is always a way to become bird, tree, water again.
Feature Date
- May 29, 2023
Series
- What Sparks Poetry
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“Heart Butte, Montana” from NEW POETS OF NATIVE NATIONS: by Heid E. Erdrich.
Published by Graywolf Press on July 10, 2018.
Copright © 2018 by M. L. Smoker.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
M.L. Smoker is a member of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. She served as Montana co-poet laureate from 2019-2021 alongside her longtime friend, Melissa Kwasny. She received an MFA from the University of Montana in Missoula. In 2019 she was recognized as an alumna of the year by the University and received an honorary doctorate in 2023. Her first collection of poems, Another Attempt at Rescue, was published by Hanging Loose Press in 2005. She also co authored a children’s graphic novel entitled Thunderous, published in 2022. She received a regional Emmy award for her work as a writer/consultant on the PBS documentary Indian Relay.
She served as the Director of Indian Education for the state of Montana for almost ten years, was appointed to the National Advisory Council on Indian Education by President Barack Obama and currently works at Education Northwest providing support for Native education efforts around the country.
A landmark anthology celebrating twenty-one Native poets first published in the twenty-first century
New Poets of Native Nations gathers poets of diverse ages, styles, languages, and tribal affiliations to present the extraordinary range and power of new Native poetry. Heid E. Erdrich has selected twenty-one poets whose first books were published after the year 2000 to highlight the exciting works coming up after Joy Harjo and Sherman Alexie. Collected here are poems of great breadth―long narratives, political outcries, experimental works, and traditional lyrics―and the result is an essential anthology of some of the best poets writing now.
Poets included are Tacey M. Atsitty, Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Laura Da’, Natalie Diaz, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Eric Gansworth, Gordon Henry, Jr., Sy Hoahwah, LeAnne Howe, Layli Long Soldier, Janet McAdams, Brandy Nalani McDougall, Margaret Noodin, dg okpik, Craig Santos Perez, Tommy Pico, Cedar Sigo, M. L. Smoker, Gwen Westerman, and Karenne Wood.
“A wonderful introduction to the diverse landscape of native voices.”
—The Washington Post
“This collection is a breathtaking, wide-ranging work of art. . . . It is a modern classic.”
—BuzzFeed
“A revelatory anthology.”
—BBC Culture
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