The Book of Bearings () von Diane Glancy

The Book of Bearings puts the puzzle pieces of the New World together without a picture on the puzzle box. The characters struggle to situate themselves between what they were and what they are supposed to become. The poems include voices from the mid-nineteenth-century Cherokee Female Seminary in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and the mid-twentieth-century Eskimo experience in Alaska, as well as personal narratives. This book addresses the Native American process of assimilation from first contact through education in the civilized world. It is a view of that world from the eyes of those who were seen as the conquered. The Book of Bearings seeks its bearing in a shifting world. Often it focuses on the effects of Christianity. The characters use the new language to frame their various experiences. They use language as a tool for understanding what cannot fully be understood, which, for the believer, is the transformation in Christ when he left the world charged with his light.

Diane Glancy is professor emerita at Macalester College. Currently she teaches in the MFA low-residency program at Carlow University. She has published several books, includingMary Queen of Bees,The Servitude of Love, andIt Was Over There by That Place. Glancys other books and awards are on her website: dianeglancy.com.