K8g8gwibakw Wantastegokwajok Wintergreen on Mount Wantastiquet Ali-sowanikik nahil8t Kwenitegok wji Wantastegokwajok Southward downstream on the Connecticut River from Mount Wantastiquet Wantastegok peb8niwi tamakwak The West River in winter at the beaver place Sp8zsigwan Peskawajok Early spring at Black Mountain Ali-sowanakik wji kchi al8mkiwajok Southward from the great mountain cave Spemkik sibok Kwenitegok…Read More
Issues/Articles
Starlit Simon
Mah & Her Misfits She embraces and understands the riff raff, the misfits, the undesirables and disreputable. Whether she’s worked as a teacher, a social worker, or the church secretary, she has always had the ability to get on their level. In fact I think she prefers it there. You might say, she is riff…Read More
Sebrena Tomah
Believe Hold on, be strong Finding our strength in who we are Through our ancestor’s ways Will help us get through each and every day. No time for shame or blame Our life is no game We go through hurt of pain If we choose to dwell We have nothing to gain With love, faith,…Read More
Charlie True
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 things are seen from behind…Read More
Letter from the Editorial Team
Dear Readers, We are extremely excited to bring you this sixth and special issue of Dawnland Voices 2.0: Autobiography. Like Siobhan Senier wrote in the introduction to the print edition of this journal, Dawnland Voices 2.0 has always been committed to providing a space for Native peoples to share their stories, poems, plays, songs, and…Read More
Ella Alkiewicz
My Uivak I am Inuk. My homeland is Nunatsiavut while my hometown is Amherst, Massachusetts. I have my husband and our daughter with super friends. Gobbling fish, creating art in various medium, and being near water are musts for this lil’ Inuk. I was removed against my wishes from my homeland as an infant. I…Read More
Mohiks Eagles Fire / Tim Blanchette
Dance, Pray, Heal: Strong Medicine Content warning: alcoholism, self harm Last fall, I let my guard down in the place where spirits get eaten. I found myself alone in my empty two-bedroom apartment on the reservation, sending up smoke to Creator. It was a time of reckoning. “Please give me strength and vision towards my future,” I asked…Read More
Faith Damon Davison
A Poor Little Village When I was little, we didn’t have a lot of money. I didn’t know it then as no one in our village who lived there year-round had a lot. Years later when I was at a local history program, one of the retired teachers who was attending, too, told me that…Read More
Wendy Newell Dyer
A Mother’s Wounds Content warning: gun violence “But soon my companions were lost to my sight beyond the mountain ridge in my rear, which still seemed ever retreating before me, and I climbed alone over huge rocks, loosely poised, a mile or more, still edging toward the clouds; for though the day was clear elsewhere,…Read More
Cheryl Savageau
Wretched Tonight I’m wretched. I thought these meds were supposed to work, but I’ve been slipping into a depression, getting worse each day. I’m irritable and pessimistic during the day, but at night I’m really despairing. I keep thinking I might as well be dead. I’m not planning anything, but life seems useless. My life…Read More
William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.
All the Way to the Bone I wish, I pray, I prayed, I thought, I even sing, for all good things to come your way, I told myself all those who hurt you, harm you, humilitate you, will answer, everybody thinks that way when it is a loved one, but I remember, I let it…Read More
Farewell Message from the Editor
It has been my great pleasure and honor to work with so many Dawnland writers over the past few years. Siobhan Senier worked for over a decade to bring the voices of the Dawnland into print in the Dawnland Voices anthology, an anthology that has let people know that we, the Native people of the…Read More
Joseph Bruchac–Featured Writer
Writer’s Statement You could say that my sons turned me into a children’s author at a time when my main objective was writing and publishing poetry. First of all, the traditional Abenaki and Iroquois stories I told them as bedtime stories (stories I’d learned not in my own childhood from family but from a wide…Read More
Rhonda Besaw
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 only coffee shop. After much…Read More
Timothy Littlehawk Blanchette
The 6th Sense I see her On posters and on the TV screen I see her Outline piercing through beams of light That pour Through the old, long-pained windows Inside The Osbourne Correctional Facility I hear your Lyrics Whisper Inside my head and on the wind I hear you Singing On the radio, fancy dancing…Read More
Carol Dana
Coats 1. It was fall and he was gone again. Oh, he’ll probably come back drunk, she thought to herself. And he thinks I drink way too much, hunh! She smoothed back her hair and looked in the mirror. That deep longing of loneliness was tugging at her again. The leaves trilled softly down on…Read More
Joyce Heywood
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 Yankee, and Greek. A product…Read More
Charlie True: In Memoriam
Don’t Look Back She was in a home for those who wait, where they sit and fondle favored toys from the bins of memory, picking through the litter of their lives and muttering bits of dialogue from happier times. They seem to understand each other’s lives, and bond, while preserving the private space between. Her…Read More
