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November 24, 2020

More Than Something Else

Rainy Dawn Ortiz

Something Else.
Some one else
Some where else

That place is here,
In my home,
We are here.

I am brown,
Brown hair,
Brown eyes,
Like cookies Feather tells me, and I like to think it’s perfectly
cooked Pueblo cookies.

My kids are something else,
9 different shades of brown,
All beautiful.

My grandkids are something else,
4 brown eyes, 2 blue eyes,
All Native,
Definitely something else, as I watch them be rowdy, be loving,
be here in this world.

We are here
On this earth
In this time and place

In our homes,
On our lands,
In the cities,
With our families, laughing loudly, cooking together, protecting
each other.

We are something else
With our songs
Our dances.

We pray with corn meal,
Eagle feathers,
Medicine bundles,
Burn some sage, make sure to acknowledge the four directions,
as the sun comes up.

We are the something else,
Who were here,
To greet Christopher Columbus

We were born from
This earth,
Crawled out of the center,
Of our mother’s womb, we are important, we are strong.

We are something else,
We are Pueblo people, Plains people, Forest People, Desert
people, Nomadic people, Cliff dwellers, Ocean fishers, Lake and
river fishers, hunters, medicine collectors, horse riders, artists,
speakers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, we are human beings.
We are something else,
We are Native People,
Indigenous to this land.
We are a proud,
Something else.

Rainy Dawn Ortiz is a poet and artist.

Inaugural Poem Contest for Students

Award-winning poet Richard Blanco will judge our new Inaugural Poem Contest for Students! Submissions will be open from November 30 to December 30; the winners will be announced in January 2021 and receive cash prizes. Students 18 or under are eligible.

Book Recommendations from Rodney Gomez, Poet Laureate of McAllen, Texas

Rodney Gomez is the author of Arsenal with Praise Song (Orison Books, 2020). Read about Gomez’s Poets Laureate Fellowship project here. Rodney Gomez is currently reading Becoming Coztōtōtl by Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros (Flowersong Press, 2019), and Rattlesnake Allegory by Joe Jiménez (Red Hen Press, 2019).

“I’ve returned to Becoming Coztōtōtl a few times during the pandemic because I love the gorgeous way it reminds us of our connections to antepasados and history. A line from the early poem 'Coahuiltecan’: 'I am from between syllables / American tongue can’t unfold.’

Rattlesnake Allegory is a beautifully rendered meditation on love, desire, and the body. Most powerful when read aloud. Ultimately it’s about survival, and I love the way so many different intersecting concerns like being Latinx and existing in nepantla come into play.”

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week: Ancestors and Inheritances: Legacies of Black Poetry

Don’t miss our #PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week: “Ancestors and Inheritances: Legacies of Black Poetry,” a reading by the contributors to Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of Black Poetry. Hosted by Furious Flower. Monday, November 30 at 7 p.m. EST, 4 p.m. PST. Learn more and register here.

Songs at the Confluence: Indigenous Poets on Place

Adrian Brinkerhoff Foundation, in partnership with Tippet Rise Art Center and In-Na-Po (Indigenous Nations’ Poets), and with promotional support from the Academy of American Poets, are excited to offer Songs at the Confluence: Indigenous Poets on Place, on Friday, December 4th, at 7 p.m. EST, 4 p.m. PST. Drawing inspiration from When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through (W. W. Norton, 2020), and curated by poets Kimberly Blaeser and Jake Skeets of In-Na-Po, the program will focus on place and its importance to Indigenous poets and their writing. Free and open to the public.

Spanish Manuscript and Translation Prizes

The Academy of American Poets is accepting submissions for the Ambroggio Prize, given to a book-length poetry manuscript originally written in Spanish and with an English translation; the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award, recognizing a poetry collection translated from any language into English and published in the previous calendar year; and the Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship, given for the translation into English of a significant work of modern Italian poetry. Submissions are open through February 15, 2021.

Opportunities for Poets

Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin, is seeking an Assistant Professor of English to teach a yearly course load of six classes starting August 2021.
Graywolf Press is seeking a full-time Senior Acquiring Editor to acquire and edit four to six works of prose a year for the Graywolf list.
Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida, is seeking a full-time, tenure-track English Instructor to begin teaching Fall 2021.
Small Press Distribution in Berkeley, California, is seeking a full-time Publicity Manager to design and implement publicity initiatives.

Heid E. Erdrich on Curating Poem-a-Day

“Right away I knew I wanted to feature poems by poets with new books and poets whose work I wish more people could read and hear. It turns out that, because I am who I am, and I read who I read, most of those poets are Native, Indigenous and also Black and LTGBQ2S writers.”

—Heid E. Erdrich, author of Little Big Bully (Penguin Editions, 2020), and Poem-a-Day Guest Editor for the month of November.

Last Week’s Poem-a-Day

Revisit last week’s Poem-a-Day selections with us on Poets.org:

November 15: “A Mojave Lullaby ” by Bertrand N.O. Walker
November 16: “Pockets” by Michael Torres
November 17: “Becoming a Ghost” by Tanaya Winder
November 18: “The Word for Gossip” by Eric Gansworth
November 19: “In the Evening” by William Reichard
November 20: “Polycystic Study of Intimacy” by Aricka Foreman
November 21: “A Picture” by Olivia Ward Bush-Banks

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Shelter in Poems with Rainy Dawn Ortiz, Legacies of Black Poetry, Book Recommendations from Rodney Gomez

More Than Something Else

Inaugural Poem Contest for Students

Book Recommendations from Rodney Gomez, Poet Laureate of McAllen, Texas

#PoetryNearYou Pick of the Week: Ancestors and Inheritances: Legacies of Black Poetry

Songs at the Confluence: Indigenous Poets on Place

Spanish Manuscript and Translation Prizes

Opportunities for Poets

Heid E. Erdrich on Curating Poem-a-Day

Last Week’s Poem-a-Day

Older messages

"Distracted from COVID-19, Attention Shifts to MIA Maiden from Land O’Lakes Butter Box" by Tiffany Midge

Join us Tomorrow for Gather in Poems

"Dear New Blood" by Mark Turcotte

"A Picture" by Olivia Ward Bush-Banks

"So Many Constellations" by Paul Celan, translated by Pierre Joris

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