About the Poetry
Poems are my small contribution toward the truth-seeking and reconciliation that must follow concentric circles of individual, familial, tribal, and global trauma. The work exposes connections. The same deadly disregard that ultimately causes glaciers to lose their ice shelves, causes colonizers to perpetuate violence against native people. The same assimilationist pressure to detribalize ourselves, causes us to use slut shaming and other gendered norms to control the bodies of girls and women.
My work reflects on these themes. It examines the consequences of failing to protect the natural world and our children, each other and ourselves. It challenges readers to step out on a braver and more reverent way to live, to care about inherent worth, free from the cultural need to fix, control or colonize. Poets Alice Walker, bell hooks, and Jimmy Santiago Baca are foundations of the bridge I cross toward a brave and reverent life. My work is a continuation of the bridge, celebrating what textures we can touch when we reconnect.