Swallowed Light
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About this ebook
- Nimipuutímpt, the language of the Nez Perce, is a critically endangered language, with fewer than 50 fluent speakers left in the world.
- Swallowed Light is written in both English and Nimipuutímpt.
- When asked to come up with a reason why he writes, Wasson said “I write because all my storytellers are dead.”
- This poetry is opulent and dreamlike, rich and visceral. The world Wasson creates is a world one cannot help but be drawn into.
- With this first full-length collection, Wasson is an exciting emerging voice in contemporary poetry.
- Wasson wrote Swallowed Light from the Japanese village in which he currently lives. He has a complex relationship with the idea of home, telling LitHub “I long to earn my way towards some sense of home.”
- Wasson grew up on the Nez Perce reservation, raised mostly by his grandfather.
- He names Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Eduardo C. Corral, and Sherwin Bitsui as major influences on his poetry.
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Book preview
Swallowed Light - Michael Wasson
Swallowed Light
MICHAEL WASSON
Logo: Copper Canyon PressCOPPER CANYON
PRESS
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Thank you. We hope you enjoy these poems.
This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
na’íicyawa
for my mother
when it dawns for us
it is growing dark for you.
c’éewc’ew
Contents
Title Page
Note to Reader
___
Aposiopesis [or, The Field between the Living & the Dead]
I
Ezekiel 37:3
Swallowed Prayers as Creation
Ant & Yellow Jacket
Resurrect
Testament #90
O. unilateralis s.l.
Self-Portrait as 1879–1934
I Say After-Rain, You Say hahalx̣páawisa
Gather Up the Bones & Arrange Them Well
Portrait with Smeared Centuries
On the Horizon
II
Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear
A Boy & His Mother Play Dead at Dawn
Wintering / he’elwéhtse
Years Later, na’pláx̣, in the Yard, Asks Me to Rename Him
The Exile
paq’qatát cilakátki
Close to Each Other with [a/the] Body
Self-Portrait as Collected Bones [Rejoice Rejoice]
Ligature
This Faithful Purge, on Behalf of Your Heavenly Father
Self-Portrait as Article 1[1]. [Treaty with the Nez Percés, 1855]: Cession of Lands to the United States
III
Face-to-Face with One of the Gods
Your Still-Life Is No Longer Still
A Poem for the háawtnin’ & héwlekipx [the Holy Ghost of You, the Space & Thin Air]
Self-Portrait toward a Fugue [No.___ in ___ ♭ Minor]
[Untitled]
World Made Visible
The Bones of Us
This Dusk in a Mouth Full of Prayer
A Soliloquy Would Imply That the Stage Is Empty
On the Aggrieved
I Am Another of Yourself: Hand-Pounded Bark, Handmade Paper: Sumi Ink: Gayle Crites: 2016
___
You Are There, Almost, without a Name, without a Body, Go Now
Notes
About the Author
Books by Michael Wasson
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Special Thanks
—
APOSIOPESIS [OR, THE FIELD BETWEEN THE LIVING & THE DEAD]
& forgive me
for I cannot
tell you how
to begin
but here
is the body
like the urge
to pray—
your mouth
already gone.
& we never
said you: a boy
woman
man—only
the animal made
with two hands
& lost
in the field
waiting
for human life
to reenter
as if through
a door
broken—&
yet the dead
who love
you—who
are still
remembering
the touch
of blood-
warmed skin—
abandon