Throughout the weekend you will have a chance to experience and learn about Native literature and poetry through discussion and readings in the Carr-Gottstein building, room 102. On Saturday March 12th the symposium will begin at 7pm and is open to the public, the event will continue into Sunday evening.
Along with many other prized artists, poets and writers featured over the weekend, will be Joan Naviyuk Kane, an Inupiaq-Inuit poet, who grew up in Anchorage, Alaska before completing degrees at both Harvard University and Columbia University.
Here is a gorgeous example of Joan Kane’s poetry.
Syllabics
The sun made new again
Shadows of ice
As vertebra cut through.
Beauty unlike a blown
Glass bird, patterns
Of fluted beads—instead
Silt or sand, or something
Fractured. A plain
Of grit, a sediment.
From the forest the wind
Had utterly
Transformed, a small nest thrown
Into the path intact—
Moose hair and moss.
In their blue and distant
Taper, you hold in poise
Mountains: upon
Stone upon stone.
She also has a stunning website, which you can peruse here to become familiar with her work.
This event is being held with the collaboration and support of many organizations and individuals who are dedicated to motivating and educating the community of Native poetry and arts, and those individuals interested in these fields. This is the first, of what we all hope will be many, events and workshops in effort to enhance poetry, literature and language in Native culture.
Additional Authors will include: Sherwin Bitsui, Chee Brossy, Abigail Chabitnoy, Michaelsun Stonesweat Knapp, Kashona Notah, Carrie Ojanen, Susie Silook, James Thomas Stevens, Marie Tozier, Bill Wetzel.
