United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo gathers the work of more
than 160 poets, representing nearly 100 indigenous nations, into the
first historically comprehensive Native poetry anthology.
This landmark
anthology celebrates the indigenous peoples of North America, the
first poets of this country, whose literary traditions stretch back
centuries. Opening with a blessing from Pulitzer Prize–winner N.
Scott Momaday, the book contains powerful introductions from
contributing editors who represent the five geographically organized
sections. Each section begins with a poem from traditional oral
literatures and closes with emerging poets, ranging from Eleazar, a
seventeenth-century Native student at Harvard, to Jake Skeets, a
young Diné poet born in 1991, and including renowned writers such as
Luci Tapahanso, Natalie Diaz, Layli Long Soldier, and Ray Young Bear.
When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through
offers the extraordinary sweep of Native literature, without which no
study of American poetry is complete.