A self-proclaimed “vessel in which stories are told from time immemorial,” poet dg nanouk okpik seamlessly melds both traditional and contemporary narrative, setting her apart from her peers. The result is a collection of poems that are steeped in the perspective of an Inuit of the twenty-first century—a perspective that is fresh, vibrant, and rarely seen in contemporary poetics.
Fearless in her craft, okpik brings an experimental, yet poignant, hybrid aesthetic to her first book, making it truly one of a kind. “It takes all of us seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling to be one,” she says, embodying these words in her work. Every sense is amplified as the poems, carefully arranged, pull the reader into their worlds. While each poem stands on its own, they flow together throughout the collection into a single cohesive body.
The book quickly sets up its own rhythms, moving the reader through interior and exterior landscapes, dark and light, and other spaces both ecological and spiritual. These narrative, and often visionary, poems let the lives of animal species and the power of natural processes weave into the human psyche, and vice versa.
Okpik’s descriptive rhythms ground the reader in movement and music that transcend everyday logic and open up our hearts to the richness of meaning available in the interior and exterior worlds.
dg nanouk okpik is a resident advisor at Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico. Her poetry appears in the books Effigies: An Anthology of New Indigenous Writing, and Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas.
Siqinq: Sun January
Ceprano Man
Izrasugruk Tatqiq: February
Imieauraq’s Ceremony of the Dead
Addled
Paniqsiqsiivik: March
Moon of the Returning Sun
Riding Samna’s Gyrfalcon
Mask of Dance
Agaviksiuvika Tatqiq: April
The Fate of Inupiaq-like Kingfisher
Drying Magma Near Illiamna
Days of Next Yesterday
Suvluravik Tatqiq: May
Stereoscope
Pearl Serpents in Trance
Palmed Hands Foist Dice
Ninilchik
Bess and Raven
Ibeivik: June Birth Time
If Oil Is Drilled in Bristol Bay
No Fishing on the Point
Salt Cedar on Kokonee at Susitna River
Demons in a Quonset Hut
Date: Post Glacial
Inyukuksaivik Tatqiq: July
Little Brother and Serpent Samna
Uqaqtaa God Brings Her/Me to the Next Mind
When Frog Songs Change
Cell Block on Chena River
The Shaman Palpates Her/My Body with Voices
Aqavirvik Tatqiq: August
Under Erasure
The Pact with Samna
Tingivik Tatqiq: September Moon
Oil is a People
Warming
Her/My Arctic: Corpse Whale
The Weight of the Arch Distributes the Girth of the Other
A Violin in Blue
Nuliavik Tatqiq: October
For the Spirits-Who-Have-Not-Yet-Rounded-the-Bend
The Flying Snow Knife
The Sun, Moon, and the Dead Raven
Nippivik Tatqiq: November
Whalebone Wolf Hunters Dance
Tonrat the Watchmaker Bestows His Wishes on Her/Me
Tulunigraq: Something Like a Raven
She Sang to Me Once at a Place for Hunting Owls: Utkiavik
In Wainwright’s Musk Oil Spermary
Her/My Seabird Sinnatkquq Dream
Ukiuk: Winter Siqinrilaq Tatqiq: December
Chain Link Fence at the End of Tin White Life
A Ricochet Harpoon Thrown Through Time Space
A Cigarette Among the Dead
An Anatkuq’s Marionette of Death
Loose Inuit Glossary
Acknowledgments
