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    Swallowed Light
    Swallowed Light
    Swallowed Light
    Ebook111 pages39 minutes

    Swallowed Light

    By Michael Wasson

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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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopper Canyon Press
    Release dateMay 10, 2022
    ISBN9781619322530
    Swallowed Light

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      Book preview

      Swallowed Light - Michael Wasson

      Cover: Swallowed Light by Michael Wasson

      Swallowed Light

      MICHAEL WASSON

      Logo: Copper Canyon Press

      COPPER CANYON

      PRESS

      Note to the Reader

      Copper Canyon Press encourages you to calibrate your settings by using the line of characters below, which optimizes the line length and character size:

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      Please take the time to adjust the size of the text on your viewer so that the line of characters above appears on one line, if possible.

      When this text appears on one line on your device, the resulting settings will most accurately reproduce the layout of the text on the page and the line length intended by the author. Viewing the title at a higher than optimal text size or on a device too small to accommodate the lines in the text will cause the reading experience to be altered considerably; single lines of some poems will be displayed as multiple lines of text. If this occurs, the turn of the line will be marked with a shallow indent.

      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

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