Indigenous Voices Book Club: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry

Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as U.S. poet laureate, edited When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through with LeAnne Howe and Jennifer Elise Foerster. The Norton anthology is the current pick for the Indigenous Voices Book Club at Bookstore1Sarasota. Its 161 poets represent more than 90 nations across more than three centuries. The book is arranged by region rather than chronology, in five sections. Each opens with traditional oral literature and closes with emerging writers, from Eleazar, a 17th-century Native student at Harvard, to the young Diné poet Jake Skeets. Elsie Souza leads the monthly discussions, which have also taken up Louise Erdrich's LaRose and the dark-fiction anthology Never Whistle at Night.