This book of poems by Layli Long Soldier (Greywolf Press, 2017) has rested on my reading table for months. I read it and I return at some point and read some more. I am not sure if I have read it through, but I know I will continue to read it for some time. It is a riveting and challenging work of art. As the title of this debut collection of poetry suggests, the tension at each poem’s center is language, and specifically the government-sanctioned language of the law, which includes (broken) treaties and official apologies, in this instance, a Congressional apology to Native Americans, which President Obama signed in 2009. Long Soldier’s poems represent and embody multiple “structures” of language through innovative typography. Each poem invites readers to consider how language has already and continues to shape and obscure the history of indigenous peoples throughout North America.
Dana Van Kooy
Associate Professor of Transnational Literature, Literary Theory and Culture
Director of the English Program
Humanities Department