Ahani:
Indigenous American Poetry 
Ahani: Indigenous
American Poetry
serves as an inlet to vast multi-cultural/multi-dimensional diversity
of
peoples whose presence extinguishes the very intention of colonization
to a
great degree. It is a tribute to various nations within a hemisphere of
cultures wherein everything is relative despite some multi-millennial
oppressions, holocausts, and subsequent suppressions intending to
eradicate and
erase relative principle and the people thereof. It is a mere sampling
of
contemporary voice from some of the millions of human beings peopling
the Americas
since
time began. From peoples whose creation stories do not share Biblical
rootage
and do not distinguish themselves as the only people created, nor
evolved, yet
oftentimes commonly refer to the direct lineage ascendancy and descent
as The
People, Real People, or The Human Beings in a measure attesting to
principal
purposes of living and being in this world in this principal place. Not
unlike
the vision of this book—To Topos (Greek)—the place, a journal venture
into
specific realm of placement in worldly time and space of the
international
community and portions thereof. Each of these voices stems from a
people
dedicated to placement in the world of what is most lately referred to
as the
Americas and who continue to remain as near to hereditary origin places
as
their prophesies insist, or who took to migration as a means of
circumventing
the heavily prophesized onslaught heading their way from across the
oceans.
<>This volume
is a meager attempt to bring together some of
the diverseness and communalities from peoples who have been here since
the
earth, as we know it, was still forming and whose footprints mark the
very rock
in solidified molten imprint all over this greatly abundant rise of the
planet.
It is an attempt to bring together voices whose conversations once
again are
taking place in this day and time and who are coming together as sister
nations
despite the dissolution of trade ways which pre-existed colonization
and joined
peoples from a physically undivided continent pre-invasion and
pre-Panama canal
land division. Though contemporary referrals designate the place to be
three
separate entities (North, Central, and South America) the truth of the
matter
is this is one land base which gave birth to thousands and thousands of
richly
diverse cultures who shared in the abundance and gifts of the
motherlands for
eons before encroachment and who still live richly diverse lives
oftentimes on,
or very near significant places of origin and/or pre-colonial prophesy,
and who
deserve much more attention and place for world counsel than has been
tolerated
by any oppressively colonizing people or their descendants until this
time
whereas now there is no other answer.
In an era where the Quechua are living a prophesy of
reclamation, where Indigenous leaders are soon coming into political
positions
(long-held by oppressive entities) to provide clarity where
colonization and
econ-ethos society have devoured more of the previously nurtured
environment
than could be imagined in the previously existing eco-ethos Indigenous
cultures, or can be sustained by the global planet and still provide
home space
to the peoples upon her breast. In the time where we have reached the
stage my
father referred to, long ago, as the time where the mother will shake
herself
loose of all necessary to ensure her own survival, to bring future
generations
into the world who have keener insight into balance through a nurture
to
nurture societal approach and who pay attention to her warnings as the
people
here had always done for eons before contact and who still insist it
the way to
sustain and nurture her. Will shake herself loose of conquering masses
devouring more than their reaches to position themselves in mightiness
reserved
only for the immortals who share the universe with heavenly bodies and
know the
realms beyond the universe in a place we, in this time, were never
meant to be. <>
This volume is an indication of word, of languages held
in secrecy, coveted and continued despite the cannons and canons upon
them. It
is a celebration of togetherness despite physical divisions and of
unity
despite historically forced separation. It is an attempt in
conversation with
elevated lingual appreciation, engaging in poetic discourse with
constructs of
various cultural theories which come to fruition from prophesy and
knowledge
long-held and long protected intendment harbored for the time we
ourselves will
be a delineating factor as to whether we will survive as a species in
this era
of cataclysmic devastation and destruction.
The poets of the Indigenous Americas have assumed
principal roles in oratory while defining present and presence;
contemporarily
interpreting value and condition; and performing intellectual reasoning
which
may very well present necessary prophesies of solution for our world.
It is in
these voices the culture resonates and is shared freely, and in these
voices
are indicators of deeper realms in actual presence within places of
origin now
often inhabited by representatives of nearly all peoples of the global
planet.
Whereas inclusions are also present of Indigenous American poets’
ventures to
outside regions and continents as well.
In this place of
gathering, for whatever reason in this
time and place, truths are surfacing here and simultaneously in many
Indigenous
communities worldwide, which are great illuminations necessary now to
circumvent the end of human life by the hand of non-Indigenous
humankind upon
the landscape we call home and on the mother planet we all stem from
and need
respect fully in order to protect ourselves and life itself. These
poets are of
this time, are present now, and speak of many realities and imagined
realms
without the need to fit into a timeline construct often oppositional to
Indigenous thought and beingness. Though the ancestry is ancient in
this place,
and the ancestry a part of everything relative in this day, the people
are very
present in this time and continue to embrace the future with
forethought and
care necessary to ensure continuation.
<>
It is
impossible to represent all of the peoples of the Americas
in a
small volume, yet these pages present those contributions toward the
path of
reclamation vocalized herein. It is a way to restore through
restorying; to
hear truths through vocalization; to attend to personal vision through
collective means; to endeavor to reach into ourselves as readers to
amass what
allusions are presented and to bring into fruition a selection
re-establishing
collective works by peoples who were intentionally divided to make
colonization
an easier task.
Anna Lee Walters once
suggested that the further a
creative piece may appear from what a non-Native may deem traditionally
authentic, the closer that piece may actually be to what is Native in
practical
Indigenous cultural thought. Second-guessing Indigenous peoples has
never
worked. Instead, we hope all readers will come into the work and let
the poets
speak to well-define themselves on the page. Walters’ anthology Neon Pow Wow is inspirational to this
work as are volumes collected by Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz, Heid E.
Erdrich, Laura
Tohe and others. This literary journal has graciously provided a place
for the
conversation of international poetics and a place for the Aboriginal
Americas
to participate in that conversation. Thus, herein, we now invite you to
relish
these words offered at this time with the hope that the receiving will
prove
reciprocal and the works included in this volume may bring some sense
of unity
both to those creating these works and the readership they touch
lightly upon.
We dream it to be a beginning, one of many, that work to re-establish
long-divided pathways between Indigenous Americans and one that serves
Indigenous thought and brings world attention to contemporary
Indigenous
people, places, creative works, values and principles for living on the
planet
we all share. This, too, is imperative.
Allison Adelle Hedge
Coke
Editor’s Note: Where
colonizing languages have served to further divide Indigenous
Americans, we have
made effort to be inclusive of multi-lingual effort in and to include
pieces of
bilingual nature wherein languages of origin are presented in the hope
of
encouraging greater future works. Recognizable and previously
unpublished poets
have been selected for the work of this volume.
Allison Adelle Hedge
Coke
America, I Sing Back
for Phil Young, my
father, Robert Hedge Coke, Whitman, and Hughes
America, I sing back. Sing
back what
sung you in.
Sing back the moment
you
cherished breath.
Sing you home into
yourself and back to reason.
Oh, before America
began to sing, I sung her to sleep,
held her cradleboard,
wept her into day.
My song gave her
creation, prepared her delivery,
held her severed cord
beautifully beaded.
My song helped her
stand, held her hand for first steps,
nourished her very
being, fed her, placed her three sisters strong.
My song comforted her
as she battled my reason
broke my long held
footing sure, as any child might do.
Lo, as she pushed
herself away, forced me to remove myself,
as I cried this
country, my song grew roses in each tear’s fall.
My blood veined
rivers, painted pipestone quarries
circled canyons,
while she made herself maiden fine.
Oh, but here I am,
here I am, here, I remain high on each and every peak,
carefully rumbling
her great underbelly, prepared to pour forth singing—
and sing again I
will, as I have always done.
Never silenced unless
in the company of strangers, singing
the stoic face,
polite repose, polite, while dancing deep inside, polite
Mother of her world.
Sister of myself.
When my song sings
aloud again. When I call her back to cradle.
Call her to peer into
waters, to behold herself in dark and light,
day and night, call
her to sing along, call her to mature, to envision—
Then, she will make
herself over. My song will make it so
When she grows far
past her self-considered purpose,
I will sing her back,
sing her back. I will sing. Oh, I will—I do.
America, I sing back. Sing
back what sung you in.
<>
This poem was first
read at the XV International Poetry Festival of Medellin,
Colombia
and first appeared in Memories,
2005, Colombia. This is the first US
publication.
