Copper Yearning () von Kimberly Blaeser

A major new collection of vividly rendered lyrical and narrative poems that trace the complex inheritances of 21st century Native America.

CONTENTSAcknowledgments ixProem: Wellspring: Words from Water 2i. GEOGRAPHIES OF LONGINGDreams of Water Bodies/ Nibii-wiiyawan Bawaadanan 4Of Eons and Epics 5Please withhold koans and questions 8Slippage 9Cadastre, Apostle Islands 11Angles of Being 13Talking Rock 14Pica 15Winter Transfigurations 16After Taiwan 18Caption 19Words on Yearning 20ii. HUNGER FOR BALANCEOf Fractals and Pink Flowering 23This Stranger’s Beauty 25Dreams of Water Bodies, Two 26BWCA Haiku 28What I Believe 29A Litany of Other 30What the Rain Remembers 32Becoming Turtle 33Tincture 34Another Intimation 35Endaso-Dagwaagin 36Manoominike-giizis 38iii. FRAYED HISTORIESA Subjectifixation Cento for Two Voices 40Of Nalusachito and the Course of Rivers 42Verse Drama One: Pagan 44Verse Drama Two: Surveyor, 1849 45Rattle 461850. Sandy Lake, Minnesota. 47Mochi, Prisoner of War 49Estate of Chief Black Kettle (1813-1868) 50Sutra, in Umber 51Summary Tabulations Descriptive of One Hundred andFifty Chippewa Indian Families on the White EarthReservation 52Ancient Hunger 53Captivity 54iv. ALCHEMY INHERITEDOn Climbing Petroglyphs 56Veteran’s Day 57Fire, After Fire 58Bawaajige 59Photosynthesis 61Exit #135 62Speaking, Like Old Desire 64Fatima at the Bab el-Bahrain Souk 65Reliquary 66Regarding the Care of Homeless Children 68The Ritual of Wishing Hands 70Sting Like a Bee 72When We Sing Of Might 73The Solace of Forgotten Races 75Again the Night 76Recipe for Remembrance 77That Buffalo Hair Fedora 78v. BLACK ASH AND RESISTANCEUnlawful Assembly 81The Smallest Shaft of Light 82Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance 84This House of Words 85Mooningwanekaaning-minis 86“Because We Come From Everything” 87Tribal Mound, Earth Sutra 89Of the many ways to say: Please Stand 90Poem for a Tattered Planet: If the Measure is Life 91Dispersion: A Treatise 94Eloquence of Earth 95Prairie Thunder 97 Solidarity: A Cento 99Sacred Stone Camp 101vi. REFRACTIONS OF SPIRITMinobimaadizi 104A Song for Giving Back 105When Loving is the Yield 107Voices in the Desert, Bahrain 2010 108Before Pearl Square 109Shiteet, the Smallest Pearl 110Canyon on the Edge of Years 111Senbzura, Held Together by Strings 112Spirit Dogs 113Bronze Lumen 116These Small Turns of Memory 117Winter Aurora 121After Words122Envoi: Drum Song 124