Songs from an Outcast

By John E. Smelcer, 2000.

In these poems, written in the Ahtna language and then rendered into memorable English, John Smelcer conveys a strong sense of his ancestry (Cherokee/Ahtna), what poet Denise Levertov calls “his constant haunting awareness of indigenous life so grievously wounded yet still alive.” Smelcer speaks from the Alaskan landscape, for the land, and for the people that belong to it. Smelcer has steeped himself and his poetry in his Ahtna traditions of language and ritual. As a result, his writing, with remarkable strength, succeeds in bridging his Native and English worlds.

95 pp.

$12 paper

10-digit ISBN: 0-935626-45-X
13-digit ISBN: 978-0-935626-45-2

Table of Contents (PDF)

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