For Native American Heritage Month, observed annually during the month of November, we asked our members—independent presses, literary journals, and others—to share with us some of the books and magazines they recommend reading in celebration.
Poetry
Copper Yearning by Kimberly Blaeser
Holy Cow! Press | 2019
“Whether resisting threats to effigy mounds or inhabiting the otherness of river otter,” the poems in Blaeser’s fourth collection “voice a universal longing for a place of balance, a way of being in the world—for the ineffable.”
Halchita Red by Paige Buffington
Middle Creek Publishing & Audio | 2025
Buffington’s forthcoming collection is “a cinematic series of poems & prose poems drawn from memory and sampled fragments of conversation—external and internal—as an antidote to the record becoming warped or lost.”
Ghosts by Albert Ayler by Merry Fortune
Futurepoem | 2004
According to Steve Dalachinsky, in this collection Fortune creates “edgy musical messages, just as Ayler’s strange, simple, melancholic melodies shared space with his weird impassioned howling and plaintive, overflowing cries.”
Cicadas: New & Selected Poems by Roberta Hill
Holy Cow! Press | 2013
According to Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Hill’s poems “carry our burdens, release us, remind us to lift ourselves, sing elegies for those we lose, bring us altitudes, summits, winged entry, then cradles our looming falls.”
Season Unleashed by Anna Odessa Linzer
Empty Bowl | 2024
Linzer’s latest poetry collection “evokes the dramatic yet subtle beauty of the Salish Sea bioregion in intimate detail based on the author’s long acquaintance, close attention, and deep reflection.”
Museum of False Starts by Chip Livingston
Gival Press | 2010
According to Joy Harjo, in this poetry collection Livingston “makes a distinct trail of poems, through Mvskoke ancestral country, through the maze of American myths, through bars and parties at the edge, through disturbance and awe.”
Blood Wolf Moon by Elise Paschen
Red Hen Press | 2025
The core of Paschen’s forthcoming poetry collection “grapples with a dark period of American history, ‘The Reign of Terror,’ when outsiders murdered individual members of the Osage for their oil headrights.”
Through a Red Place by Rebecca Pelky
Perugia Press | 2021
Written in English and Mohegan, this story-in-poems “assembles the author’s research into her Native and non-Native heritage in the land now known as Wisconsin” and “relates narratives of people who converged on and impacted this space in myriad ways.”
Birds, LLC | 2016
Pico’s book is “a sweaty, summertime poem composed like a long text message, rooted in the epic tradition of A.R. Ammons, ancient Kumeyaay Bird Songs, and Beyoncé’s visual albums.”
Blood Quantum & Other Hate Crimes by Marsheila Rockwell
Fallen Tree Press | 2024
According to Chris La Tray, in this chapbook about family, culture, the disappearance of indigenous women and children, and more, Rockwell “has delivered nothing less than a howl of defiance against erasure.”
A History of Echoes by Rod Carlos Rodriguez
Gival Press | 2024
According to Mihir Shah, in this book Rodriguez “preserves the rich history of Taíno culture with incredible tact and tenacity in a compilation that is a clinic on narrative poetry.”
A Woman’s Life on the Edge of the Sea by Irene Skyriver
Green Writers Press | 2023
In this debut collection, Skyriver “delves deep into her family and heritage and into the richness of nature and Mother Earth.”
Another Attempt at Rescue by M. L. Smoker
Hanging Loose Press | 2005
The title poem in this collection begins, “And to think I had just paid a cousin twenty dollars to shovel the walk. / He and two of his buddies, still smelling of an all-nighter, arrived at 7 am to begin their work.”
A Light to Do Shellwork By by Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez
Scarlet Tanager Books | 2022
According to Joy Harjo, Valoyce-Sanchez’s book is “a beautiful masterwork on how to take care of the light of knowledge given to her by family, by the lands and the waters.”
Anthologies
How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America
Haymarket Books | 2020
Edited by Sara Sinclair, this anthology “shares contemporary Indigenous stories in the long and ongoing fight to protect Native land and life.”
Akashic Books | 2010
Edited by Sarah Cortez and Liz Martínez, this noir anthology is a journey “through the north, south, east, and west of Indian Country.”
Native Voices: Indigenous American Poetry, Craft and Conversations
Tupelo Press | 2019
This groundbreaking anthology, edited by CMarie Fuhrman and Dean Rader, offers “a diverse collection of stories told by Indigenous writers about themselves, their histories, and their present.”
Graywolf Press | 2018
Edited by Heid E. Erdrich, 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.”
Red Indian Road West: Native American Poetry from California
Scarlet Tanager Books | 2016
According to Ruth Nolan, the poems in this anthology “sculpt a momentous geography in image and verse that’s as breathtaking and deeply imprinting as the lay of the California landscape itself.”
Fiction
A Generous Spirit: Selected Work by Beth Brant
Sinister Wisdom | 2019
Edited by Janice Gould and a finalist for the 2020 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction from the Publishing Triangle, this selection of Brant’s work is a “portrait of survival and empathy at the intersection of Native American and lesbian experience.”
The Chugalug King & Other Stories by Andrew Brown
Passager Books | 2016
According to Margaret Osburn, the ten stories in this collection “are grisly, ironic, lyrical battles.”
Under Nushagak Bluff by Mia C. Heavener
Red Hen Press | 2019
Heavener’s novel is “a generational saga of strong, stubborn Yup’ik women living in a village that has been divided between the new and the old, the bluff side and the missionary side, the cannery side and the subsistence side.”
Graywolf Press | 2022
Set in and around Flagstaff, the stories in Sinking Bell “depict violent collisions of love, cultures, and racism.”
Living on the Borderlines by Melissa Michal
Feminist Press | 2019
“Both on and off the rez, characters contend with identity as contemporary Haudenosaunee peoples” in these short stories.
The Wolf’s Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told by Wolves by Thomas D. Peacock
Holy Cow! Press | 2020
According to Marcie Rendon, this is “a story of zaagi’idiwin, the story of love—the love of the wolves for each other and their family, the Anishinaabe people. A story of the love the Creator has for what has been created.”
Graywolf Press | 2022
First published by Graywolf Press in 1995, in this novel Treuer “uncovers in even the most frost-hardened ground the resilience and humor of life in Poverty.”
Pour One for the Devil by Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr.
Lanternfish Press | 2024
According to Jeremy Robert Johnson, this horror novella “dives headlong into all the liquor, lies, and long-simmering moral horrors one could hope for from a Southern Gothic, and finds unique gravity in its lively layering of American atrocity.”
Nonfiction & Multi-Genre Works
The Mason House by T. Marie Bertineau
Lanternfish Press | 2020
This memoir is “an elegy for lost loved ones and a tale of growing up amid hardship and hope, exploring how time and the support of a community can at last begin to heal even the deepest wounds.”
Warrior Princesses Strike Back by Sarah Eagle Heart and Emma Eagle Heart-White
Feminist Press | 2023
“Interspersing personal memoir with radical notions of self-help and collective recovery,” this forthcoming book “focuses how Indigenous activist strategies can be a crucial roadmap for contemporary truth and healing.”
Verb Animate: Poetry and Prose from Collaborative Acts by Heid E. Erdrich
Trio House Press | 2024
This collection of poems and reflections “explores the nuances and joys of Erdrich’s artistic collaborations with Twin Cities choreographers, visual artists, digital artists, and others.”
Haymarket Books | 2024
Newly available in paperback, this book features a new afterword by Estes about “the rising indigenous campaigns to protect our environment from extractive industries and to shape new ways of relating to one another and the world.”
Beer-Breath Kisses by Damon McKinney
Belle Point Press | 2023
The speaker of this hybrid prose collection “grieves the loss of both a place and the people that made it home while remaining hopeful that Beer-Breath Kisses may linger a little longer.”
I Can’t Forgive a Dead Man by Damon McKinney
Belle Point Press | 2024
This follow-up chapbook to Beer-Breath Kisses “depicts loss and loyalty in a world where death can be both sudden and sacred.”
Guard the Mysteries by Cedar Sigo
Wave Books | 2021
In this compendium of five talks for the Bagley Wright Lecture Series, Sigo “plumbs the particulars of modern critique, identity politics, early influences, and poetic form to produce a singular ‘autobiography of voice.’”
Literary Magazines
An Interview with Annie Wenstrup
New England Review | 2024
In this interview, Nico Amador and Wenstrup—whose poems “Exhibit D: Unsent Memo” and “Ghost Pixels” appear in Issue 44.4—discuss her revision process, experimenting with form, representing time on the page, the power of curiosity, and more.
“Portraits of the Artists” by Jason Asenap
Alta | 2023
This essay begins, “‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,’ said Leslie Halfmoon as she moved her flashlight across a series of dusty Polaroids.”
“The Beginning” by Byron F. Aspaas
Terrain.org | 2024
This piece begins, “The first school I attended was an Indian boarding school. I remember the first day of kindergarten. I remember seeing my mom leave quickly when I ran towards her.”
Assimilations: An Interview with John Feodorov
Full Bleed | 2024
In this interview, Elise Dean Wolf and Feodorov discuss influential cultural and art objects from his childhood, his use of text and found images, feeling in between identities and worldviews, his approach to starting new pieces, and more.
Two Poems by Ahimsa Tomorrow Bodhrán
Anodyne Magazine | 2024
“Reverberations” and “Reglacial” appear in Issues 2 and 3 of Anodyne Magazine.
“Especially in Absentia” by Tommy Cheis
Chicago Story Press Literary Journal | 2024
This essay begins, “On the first day of sixth grade at Sierra Vista Middle, I check in at the office, receive my schedule, then trudge down the hallway toward my first class. I am the only Indian in the entire school.”
“The Bear Essentials” by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
Salvation South | 2024
This essay begins, “On an exceptionally sweltering midsummer day in 1981, a crowd gathers at the edge of downtown Cherokee, North Carolina.”
“Where’s the Reservation?” by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
Salvation South | 2023
This essay begins, “There is a certain kind of summer heat that pulses through a souvenir store in Cherokee, North Carolina.”
“Life and Limb” by Jenny L. Davis
West Trestle Review | 2020
This poem begins, “Sometimes I / think of myself as / an octopus working / without an arm.”
“NDN Heartbreak Song” by Kinsale Drake
Alta | 2024
This poem begins, “Albuquerque phone booth: / Next door a boy I loved / who loved my cousin…”
“My Journey to Identity” by Emily
Wellspringwords | 2024
This essay begins, “I remember sitting in church, learning that Jesus was white. I remember seeing all the photos of Jesus and God and all the surrounding angels, never seeing coloured people.”
“The Sleepwalkers” by Coby-Dillon English
The Baltimore Review | 2024
This story begins, “We wanted out. Inside, it was dark and warm. We wanted to take those ragged breaths of night air, inhales sharp enough to shred our throats.”
“Santa Fe Poem” by Emerald ᏃᏈᏏ GoingSnake
Frozen Sea | 2023
This poem begins, “the windows were down the day / you found me / opened / splayed / like the figs on the glass plate in front of me / ripening / sweetening my bloodstream…”
Three Poems by Emerald ᏃᏈᏏ GoingSnake
Terrain.org | 2024
The poem “In the Beginning” begins, “In the beginning, there was only this lake / pounding harsh against the jagged rocks— / this brutal beating below bark shadowed…”
“Watȟéča” by Cannupa Hanska Luger
Ayin Press | 2022
The poem in this multimedia work begins, “There is a valuable lesson in the nature of the scavenger. / They thrive by destroying death. Immune to the diseases of rotting flesh.”
“Future Ancestral Technologies” by Cannupa Hanska Luger
Ayin Press | 2021
According to the editor’s note, the multimedia work in this series “develops an ongoing narrative in which Indigenous people harness technology to live nomadically in hyper-attunement to land and water.”
The Drift | 2022
This essay begins, “An Indigenous woman steps onto a white beach. Several others follow her carefully, winding their way through nearby palm trees and squinting out over warm Atlantic waters.”
“A Small Fan in the Window” by Ruby Hansen Murray
The Hopkins Review | 2023
This poem begins, “The kind of neighbor I am walks when the red sun slips / behind Nikolai like a coin.”
“My Body Fleeting” by Ruby Hansen Murray
SWWIM | 2024
This poem begins, “We watched white flecks, birds / far up against the ridge. Bright / against blue-green, a trick of evening.”
Narrative | 2024
This anthology contains stories and poems by Kenzie Allen, Sherwin Bitsui, Morgan Talty, Natalie Diaz, and more.
“Trans NDN Archive” by Kai Minosh Pyle
manywor(l)ds | 2024
This piece begins, “in the aftermath of everything indigenous scientists discovered ways to determine the precise shade of depressionanxietyadhdautismcptsdschizoborderline-induced delirium trans ndns were experiencing at any given moment.”
ANMLY | Issue 30
Editor tanner menard says, “I sought to gently weave a space where Indigenous poets & artists who exist outside of heteronormative realms of gender & sexuality could reveal their wisdom & share their hearts with the literary community as a single but diverse chorus of voices.”
“Black & Tan” by Suzanne S. Rancourt
West Trestle Review | 2023
This poem begins, “I stretch through extended neck and angled chin / tap sunlight’s edge as it leaks over window sills frosted by sub zero temps.”
ANMLY | 2021
The poem “Mercy” begins, “This morning I kissed a woman with a brick in her clay hands. / I am building a house, she said. Brick in her hands, tongues in her mouth.”
“Letter from a Code Talker, 1945” by Sean Sam
Bellevue Literary Review | 2024
This poem begins, “The enemy skin seems a similar shade, / sometimes glowing in atolls bombed / or when it flaps and droops like a flag…”
“Let’s Try It This Way for the Last Ones” by Allison Akootchook Warden
ANMLY | 2023
This poem begins, “peace living on our own land. / an island, ocean freezes. / berry spots for family. / we kept moving, then settled here, / and the peace was here and it was good.”
