Water&’s Top Picks for Poetry
From Natalie Diaz’s Collection Postcolonial Love Poem
“The First Water is the Body”
“How the Milky Way Was Made”
“exhibits from The American Water Museum”
“The water we drink, like the air we breathe, is not a part of our body but is our body. What we do to one—to the body, to the water—we do to the other.” ; “If I say, My river is disappearing, do I also mean, My people are disappearing?” - Natalie Diaz, “The First Water is the Body”
From New Poets of Native Nations edited by Heid E. Erdrich
“38” by Layli Long Soldier
“From Nature Poem” by Tommy Picco
“When It Rains It Pours” by Julian Talamantez Brolaski
“Hinterlands” by Sy Hoahwah
“(First Trimester)” by Craig Santos Perez
“(Papa and Wakea)” by Craig Santos Perez
“How Soon” by Gordon Henry, Jr.
From the poet Demian DineYazhi on the platform Literary Hub
“Water is Life: A Poem for the Standing Rock”
“Water is medicine / a continual ceremony / it brings people together / colonizers can’t seem to grasp this / reality” ; “indigenous resistance is ceremony” - Demian DineYazhi, “Water is Life: A Poem for the Standing Rock”
From Nikki Giovanni’s Collection Re: Creation
“Walking Down Park”
From the platform AAA Native Arts sourced from Ojibwe Oral Tradition
“Ojibwa Poem: Nibi (Water)”
“Anishinaabekwe, the Daughters, , You are the keepers of the water” ; “I am the wombs cradle / I purify” ; “Now hear my sorrow and my pain / in the river’s rush, the rain” - Ojibwe Oral Tradition, “Ojibwa Poem: Nibi (Water)”
From Emily Dickinson’s Collection Time & Eternity
“Water, Is Taught by Thirst”
From Ursula K. Le Guin’s Collection Hard Words and Other Poems
“Smith Creek”
“Coast”
From the poet Robert Trezise Jr. on the platform Poetry Soup
“City Water”
“Torch Lake- Passing on the Torch”
“Torch Lake- No More troubles”
“Torch Lake IV- Deceitful Sunrise”
From John Straley’s collection The Rising and the Rain
“tennakee springs: september 2001”
“the rising and the rain”