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The new poetry collection “Cloud Runner” from Joy Harjo (Mvskoke) is the culmination and curated expression of her own personal grief. The poems spring from the aftermath of her daughter’s death in 2023 and range from devastating to hopeful. Harjo, musician, artist, and the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate, explores a mother’s anguish and the time and work it takes to reconcile it. Harjo’s talent for expressing that grief in the most personal way is an instrument in the process that connects the writer with the reader. Along the way, she considers how art and culture can transform historical and collective wounds. On Indigenous Peoples Day, we’ll hear from Harjo about “Cloud Runner” and her many other creative projects.

 

Break 1 Music: Rabbit (song) Joy Harjo (artist) Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace (album)

Break 2 Music: KuuPua (song) The Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band (artist) Incarnadine (album)

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The number of books dropped from school reading lists and public library shelves is the highest since the organization, PEN America, started keeping track. Fueled mainly by conservative pressure groups and elected leaders at the school board and state legislative levels, the challenges to books target what opponents consider obscenity and themes that are too mature for younger readers. But books by Native writers that cover issues like race, social justice, and historical accounts that go against more patriotic portrayals are also caught up in the attempts to control what people can read. We’ll hear about the trends for removing books for public view.

GUESTS

Allison Waukau (Menominee and Navajo), American Indian Library Association member at large

Joaquin Muñoz (Pascua Yaqui Tribe), professor of Indigenous education at the University of British Columbia

Odia Wood-Krueger (Métis), educational consultant at Wood Krueger Initiatives, LLC

Casandra Hanson (Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs), owner of Sahaptin Stories

 

Break 1 Music: Groove Warrior (song) Delbert Anderson Trio (artist) Manitou (album)

Break 2 Music: War Dance Song (song) Sander Heath, Ed Spino, Byton Patt, Nathan Jim, Duane Miller, and Rudy Clements (artist) 16 Songs by Warm Springs Confederated Tribes (album)

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After centuries of having their stories told by outsiders, Indigenous people made considerable progress in having their voices represented in the media in recent decades. The 2012 book, “American Indians and the Mass Media,” co-edited by Meta Carstarphen, documented that growth in authentic Native voices. Now, a new book edited by Carstarphen and Cristina L. Azocar picks up where the original book left off. “Storytelling Sovereignty: Indigenous Peoples and the Media,” combines scholarly research and interviews with notable Native journalists and storytellers. It reviews the history of Native radio, television, news, and the arts and provides a first draft of the dramatic shifts in media just in the past ten years. We’ll hear from some of those featured in the book about how Native perspectives are making a difference.

GUESTS

Dr. Cristina Azocar (Upper Mattaponi), professor and chair of journalism at San Francisco State University

Mark Trahant (Shoshone Bannock), writer and former editor at ICT

Joseph Orozco (Hoopa Valley Tribe), part-time employed at KIDE, vice chairman of the Association of Affiliates for the Pacifica Radio Network, and member of Hoopa Tribal Educational Association

 

Break 1 Music: Water by Jim Pepper [Arranged by Jhoely Garay] (song) Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band (artist) Live at Joe’s Pub, NYC on January 13th, 2024 (performance)

Break 2 Music: Four Corners (song) Little Axe Singers (artist) Traditional Voices: Historic Recordings of Traditional Native American Music (album)

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Eliza “Lyda” Conley was a strong, independent Wyandot woman who is credited with preserving the cemetery where her family and other tribal members were buried in the face of mounting commercial development pressure. Conley defended the Huron Indian Cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas in the courts as well as from a makeshift shack where she and her sister took up residence with their father’s Civil War shotgun around the turn of the last century. In the process, she became the first Native woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Her story, and that of Wyandot removal, is told in the book, “Lyda Conley and the Fight to Preserve Huron Indian Cemetery”, and in a new art installation at the Wyandotte County Historical Museum.

Also in Kansas, a 10-foot tall, 28-ton sacred boulder is now on Kaw Nation land after a multi-year struggle. Kaw citizens revered the rock for centuries. Then Lawrence officials commandeered it 1929 for a monument to the non-Native city founders. That started the fight by the Kaw Nation — the state’s namesake tribe — to repatriate it to tribal control. The history of Iⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe is documented in a book, “Shokhí: A Kanza Relative, a Monument, and Rematriation”, and gives readers a glimpse into the politics and human influences along the way.

GUESTS

c. huffman (Kaw), dis/abled poet and theologian

Dr. Tai Edwards, director of the Kansas Studies Institute and professor of history at Johnson County Community College

Justine Smith (Wyandotte), film and multimedia instillation artist and part of the Omakyehstih Collective

Madeline Easley (Wyandotte), writer, artist, and cultural organizer

 

Break 1 Music: Totah (song) The Delbert Anderson Trio (artist) MANITOU (album)

Break 2 Music: Mountain by the Sea (song) Various Artists (artist) Traditional Voices: Historic Recordings of Traditional Native American Music (album)

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Iñupiaq poet Joan Kane explores themes of home and colonial dispossession in her new poetry collection, “with snow pouring southward past the window“. Kane’s poems center on Iñupiaq worldviews and language, featuring masterful experimentation with form and imagery. Her critically acclaimed work has led to faculty appointments at Harvard University, Tufts University, and Reed College. She also recently edited “Circumpolar Connections: Creative Indigenous Geographies of the Arctic”, an anthology of Indigenous writings about the region.

Ho-Chunk elder Sherman Funmaker just released his debut collection of poems and essays in “Bear Tracks“. He navigates the culture, family, loss, and racism he experienced growing up in Wisconsin. He writes with both emotional depth and humor about such life-changing decisions as dropping out of high school to be a rock-and-roll drummer and finding success as a writer later in life.

 

Break 1 Music: The Wild One (song) Link Wray (artist)

Break 2 Music: Cauyaqa Nauwa [Where’s My Drum] (song) Pamyua (artist) Drums Of The North: Traditional Yup’ik Songs (album)