Penguin poets

Place of publication from publisher's website

"A stunning, multimorphic work of poetry and prose about Indigenous identity. mother is a work rooted in an intimate an Indigenous child is adopted out of her tribe and raised by a non-Indian family. As an adult finding her way back to her origins, our unnamed narrator begins to put the pieces of her birth family's history together through the stories told to her by her mother, father, sister, and brother, all of whom remained on the reservation where she was born. Through oral histories, family lore, and imagined pasts and futures, a collage of their community builds, raising profound questions about adoption, inheritance, and Indigenous identity in America."--

Author's note --

I.

america -- [redacted] -- to [fall] and give -- you make me big -- we let no grief -- farther hellos -- keeping stillness -- talking back to me -- the end cannot be me -- engine injun -- america never looked for us -- listening to stay -- driving around looking for you -- only as old as we've been told -- / mythos -- will we return? -- i don't have dream words -- the sky below you -- spinning air -- running roads above and away -- city thirst -- when quiet tangle speaks -- i lost all the nights -- rearview -- all air going north and a walk outside -- seeing by night -- measure of life through light -- the dream is dreamt -- you are the arc holding necessity -- make a new millennia -- under an illuminated same -- [somewhere] and kept -- i watch you but you do not watch me -- this is what kafka really meant when he wished to be a red indian -- the blood on your shirt is mine -- hover our grey -- hustle the roads -- driveway dreams -- eyes wide and a drive so fast -- shadow you best -- the headlights shine toward you --

II.

hover their grey -- closing my eyes to see straight -- tour of the hemispheres -- melting in whisper -- red is the only color i see -- finding tomorrow -- running into and away -- there under an illuminated same -- october song -- mother -- hymn eden -- how we're here -- you heard me first in the end -- red tilts home -- seeing the end -- in the quietest way -- will you look for me at all -- how must we be -- riding the highway -- new mass -- searching the middle for you -- we slept at last -- july 1969 -- thisiswhere -- Exodus.

Acknowledgments --

A note about "red tilts home"