Phillip at Wachusett The grating of the dried oaks of Wachusettleaf upon layered leafwould shatter the wind’s soft lilting whisperin the sea-pines at Pokanoket.I listen for it nightly in my sleep,and hear the wandering dead of the Wampanoagswailing amongst the duneslooking for their people.My father went among the Nipmucsto die; ...

Oystering When I was a little kid, my father would be away for long stretches of time. First he was with Merritt, Chapman and Scott, a large maritime company that did salvage work, piloting and also did a lot of the dredging of navigable estuaries and rivers along the east ...

Per the request of the late Abenaki Elder Gali Sanchez, this poem was lovingly read at his ceremony, as his ashes were laid to rest in the Connecticut River.   Seeing Some things are clear as the eyes of a just-caught fish. Others dance at the edge of our circle of seeing as a bat at dusk. Some ...

Book Review of Kiskajeyi – I Am Ready: A Hermeneutic Exploration of Mi’kmaq Komqwejwi’kasikl Poetry by Michelle Sylliboy (Rebel Mountain Press, 2019). 76 pp. I think a lot about what Leanne Betasamosake Simpson calls Nishnabaabeg (hereafter broadened to Indigenous) brilliance—the myriad of ways in which Indigenous people are and have ...

POETRY   skitkomiq kihci-kikuwosson wewehseyutomon ktahkomiq ma-te wen `topeltomuwon ktahkomiq psi-te keq nituwi nutomonon ktahkomihkuk micuwakon, `samaqan, ktahkomonsol… skitkomiq kihci-kikuwosson kilun yut skitkomiq kikon     the earth is our great mother treat the earth as sacred nobody owns the earth everything I need, I get from the earth food, ...

Red Trillium at Lake Wildwood watercolor & acrylic Doc's Magnolia Warbler watercolor Dad's Jack-in-the-Pulpit watercolor David's Bass watercolor Mom's Bluebirds watercolor   Joyce Heywood is of mixed White and Abenaki Indian descent, a mother of 2 and grandmother of 3. Her unique family background mixes 3 cultures: Native American, old ...

REBEL DAWTA 2: The Kitchen Formica tables with stainless steel strips around their edges yellow tables, the color of freshly churned country butter glass topped butter dishes gold-rimmed sugar bowls plastic paper napkin and matching salt and pepper shakers marvelous shakers labeled P and S fat bellied enigmatic short white ...

So Far Away Along the passages of the times come and gone, There are various thoughts that come on strong, Where I see you as being so far away, Images that may go astray, While I am here and you are there, I reach out with concerns and care, As ...

The Grave Robber or Brother Skunk Takes a Ride Somebody was robbing graves in Perkinsville. Not your typical storybook grave robber, oh no, this unholy cuss was digging up the flowers from the graves, one by one. This became quite a topic of conversation and consternation at the local men’s ...

Pushing the Boundaries: An Interview with Two New England Native Artists Virginia McLaurin is a PhD student in the Anthropology Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in Native Studies and Film. Her Eastern Cherokee ancestry led to her academic focus on both dominant filmic and televisual representations of ...

Return to Dawnland I Am Passamaquoddy “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come, along with patience and equanimity.”  ~Carl Jung  To say that my ...

  Harlan Chronicles   Intro to Story The Harlan Chronicles is a forthcoming novella series that follows the life of Harlan Drinkwater, set in a post-reservation dystopia, the first set of stories in the PRD Series. During a time when all books written are screened and digitized as federal property, ...