Doubters and Dreamers

Notes and Acknowledgments

Notes and Acknowledgments If the first line of “We Could Not Forget” seems familiar, it’s because I lifted it from Luci Tapahonso’s poem “In 1864.” I used Tapahonso’s poem to teach my students the pantoum form, asking them to select a line from her poem that spoke to them. Her line, “The journey began, and the soldiers were all around us” spoke to me. This poem can be found in Luci’s book Sáanii Dahataal: The Women Are Singing, published by the University of Arizona Press, 1993. “Tribal History” was originally titled “Bound Poem #2.” I wrote it at the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center during its October 2007 Housewarming Celebration. The poem is a “found” poem, constructed from a set of provided words under timed conditions. For more information, see http://poetrycenter.arizona.edu/postandbind/gould. shtml. The poem emerged from a hazy memory. Years ago I read Donald P. Jewell’s Indians of the Feather River: Tales and Legends of Concow Maidu of California (Ballena Press, Menlo Park, 1987) in which the story of the lynching tree is recorded. “XXI Century Villanelle” was originally published as a limited edition broadside, typeset and printed by Marie-Elise Wheatwind and illustrated by her son, James Woodard. It was included in “April Is the Cruelest Month,” a group show of letterpress broadsides in the Basil Hallward Gallery at Powell’s City of Books, in Portland, Oregon, spring 2002. The entire portfolio, which benefits Literacy Volunteers, can be found at http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-2221131652375-0. This book of poems has been many years in the making. I am grateful to the editors at the University of Arizona Press for suggestions on revising this manuscript, and especially to Patti Hartmann for her encouragement. Several friends also read this manuscript, or parts of it, while it existed in raw form and gave me feedback and advice. I thank Sandy Dorr, Chris Faatz, Lisa Greseth, Andrea Herrera, Rebecca Ruiz Jenab, Julie Kasper, Jane Martin, Paulann Petersen, Becky Thompson, Linda Watts, and Mimi Wheatwind. I owe a debt of gratitude to my sisters for their support and willingness to let me share family stories. Thanks, too, to editors of the following publications who published some of these poems, many of them in somewhat different form: News from Native California; Deer Drink the Moon: Poems of Oregon; Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics from California; Spring Salmon, Hurry to Me!; Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics; Manzanita Review; Pilgrimage; Three Coyotes; and Native Literatures: Generations. ...