A Selection of Poems by Indigenous Authors

Read by Heid E. Erdrich (Ojibwe), Guest Curator and Writer.

E. Pauline Johnson, (Tekahionwake) (Mohawk)

Flint and Feather: The Complete Poems of E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) (The Musson Book Co., Limited, 1917) by Emily Pauline Johnson.

Known as Tekahionwake, which means “The White Wampum”, E. Pauline Johnson wrote and performed her poetry and was well-published in her lifetime, authoring several collections in handsomely bound editions. Johnson’s subjects touched on Native American life of the era. Poems by this author accompany paintings in the Rotherwas Room. Johnson wrote several poems on paintings and etchings that reveal her strong interest in visual narrative and imaginative interaction with art.

The Camper – an excerpt

Shadow River – an excerpt

Under Canvas – an excerpt

Alexander Posey, (Muskogee Creek)

On left, title page on an aged paper with book title, author, contributor, publisher’s information, no decorative patterns; on right, black-and-white photo of poet.

Poems of Alexander Lawrence Posey. (Topeka, Kan.: Crane Printers, 1910), 100.

Alexander Posey, (Muskogee Creek) was a poet, journalist, and humorist known for his poems and Fus Fixico letters.

Olivia Ward Bush-Banks (African American and Montauk)

Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, “A Picture,” Published in Poem-a-Day on November 21, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.