including Edward S. Curtisâs
Native American Wisdom: Photographs by Edward S. Curtis
(Philadelphia: Running Press, 1994); William S.Lyonâs
Encyclopedia of Native American Healing
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1996); Peter Nabokovâs edited volume,
Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations From Prophecy to the Present, 1492â2000
, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1999); and Kent Nerburnâs edited collection,
The Wisdom of the Native Americans
(Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 1999). In considering the Native American experience of the expedition, however, no resource was more significant than the original oral histories of the Nez Perce themselves, transcribed by Baird, Diana Mallickan, and Swagerty, âVoices in Nez Perce,â vol. II.
Wading through these many volumes, traveling the thousandplus miles to the ocean and back, sitting in the sweat lodge, walking the same riverbanks and staring up into the same big sky that embraced York, and spending time with the same beautiful people that made a home for him is the reason these poems breathe air. I pray my own feeling and beliefs donât get in the way of the voices of the individual voices assembled here, which must speak their own truths.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to my research assistant/partner/wife, Michaele L. Pride. Thanks for the feedback and eyeballs of Mitchell Douglas, Jim Minick, Parneshia Jones, Drew Dillhunt, James Holmberg, CX Dillhunt, Tim Seibles, Greg Pape, Debra Magpie Earling, and Vivien Ara. Thanks to Cheryl Floyd-Miller for the brilliant, probing questions. Thanks to Diane Malikan, Allen Pinkham, Jeff Guillory, and the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce Nation) for welcoming me to the Rez, Lapwai High School, and the sweat lodge. Thanks to Roberta Conner, Pam Steele, Brian Conner, the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls, Montana, and the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute. Thanks to Laurel Lightner for light. Thanks to the Cave Canem family for continuing to raise the bar and to the Affrilachian Poets for holding up their end. Thanks, Faith, for your continued presence and blessings, and the Lannan family in Santa Fe, and Marfa for the generous support and encouragement to find these poems, and the wonderful staff at the University Press of Kentucky and Deborah Meade for carving this collection into a book. Aché.
About the Author
Frank X Walker is the author of three collections of poetry:
Affrilachia; Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York;
and
Black Box.
He is the founding editor and publisher of
PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture.
A founding member of the Affrilachian Poets and a Cave Canem Fellow, he received the prestigious 2005 Lannan Foundation Poetry Fellowship. His other awards and honors include honorary doctoral degrees from Transylvania University and University of Kentucky, the 2004 Lillian Smith Book Award for
Buffalo Dance,
a Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Fellowship, and the 2006 Thomas D. Clark Award for Literary Excellence. A graduate of the University of Kentucky and Spalding Universityâs MFA in Writing Program, he is Lecturer of English and Writer in Residence at Northern Kentucky University.
Native American Wisdom: Photographs by Edward S. Curtis
(Philadelphia: Running Press, 1994); William S.Lyonâs
Encyclopedia of Native American Healing
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1996); Peter Nabokovâs edited volume,
Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations From Prophecy to the Present, 1492â2000
, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1999); and Kent Nerburnâs edited collection,
The Wisdom of the Native Americans
(Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 1999). In considering the Native American experience of the expedition, however, no resource was more significant than the original oral histories of the Nez Perce themselves, transcribed by Baird, Diana Mallickan, and Swagerty, âVoices in Nez Perce,â vol. II.
Wading through these many volumes, traveling the thousandplus miles to the ocean and back, sitting in the sweat lodge, walking the same riverbanks and staring up into the same big sky that embraced York, and spending time with the same beautiful people that made a home for him is the reason these poems breathe air. I pray my own feeling and beliefs donât get in the way of the voices of the individual voices assembled here, which must speak their own truths.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to my research assistant/partner/wife, Michaele L. Pride. Thanks for the feedback and eyeballs of Mitchell Douglas, Jim Minick, Parneshia Jones, Drew Dillhunt, James Holmberg, CX Dillhunt, Tim Seibles, Greg Pape, Debra Magpie Earling, and Vivien Ara. Thanks to Cheryl Floyd-Miller for the brilliant, probing questions. Thanks to Diane Malikan, Allen Pinkham, Jeff Guillory, and the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce Nation) for welcoming me to the Rez, Lapwai High School, and the sweat lodge. Thanks to Roberta Conner, Pam Steele, Brian Conner, the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls, Montana, and the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute. Thanks to Laurel Lightner for light. Thanks to the Cave Canem family for continuing to raise the bar and to the Affrilachian Poets for holding up their end. Thanks, Faith, for your continued presence and blessings, and the Lannan family in Santa Fe, and Marfa for the generous support and encouragement to find these poems, and the wonderful staff at the University Press of Kentucky and Deborah Meade for carving this collection into a book. Aché.
About the Author
Frank X Walker is the author of three collections of poetry:
Affrilachia; Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York;
and
Black Box.
He is the founding editor and publisher of
PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture.
A founding member of the Affrilachian Poets and a Cave Canem Fellow, he received the prestigious 2005 Lannan Foundation Poetry Fellowship. His other awards and honors include honorary doctoral degrees from Transylvania University and University of Kentucky, the 2004 Lillian Smith Book Award for
Buffalo Dance,
a Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Fellowship, and the 2006 Thomas D. Clark Award for Literary Excellence. A graduate of the University of Kentucky and Spalding Universityâs MFA in Writing Program, he is Lecturer of English and Writer in Residence at Northern Kentucky University.
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