(Lucille Lang Day, Kimberly M. Blaeser, Denise Low, Craig Santos Perez, Kimberly G. Wieser)

Indigenous peoples are those who’ve had the longest relationship with any given place. They have the deepest knowledge of the plants and animals, and they are the longest-serving stewards of the land, often for 10,000 years or more. Respect for the land is an integral part of indigenous cultures. The panelists will discuss what indigenous writers bring to the broader conversation of poetry concerning environmental preservation, ecosystem damage, and

climate change and read representative poems.

In the midst of an epidemic on MMIW, in the midst of a global
pandemic that has devastated Native communities, in the midst
of tragic revelations of mass unmarked graves at boarding
schools, why art? Why poetry, dance, or song? This program of
picto-poems and poetry, will look at how Native Arts feed
Indigenous Flourishing. Drawing on the work and statements of
Indigenous artists from Joy Harjo to James Luna, touching on
tribal traditions from the healing jingle dress dance to trickster
antics to activist poetics, Anishinaabe writer and photographer
Kimberly Blaeser will celebrate Indigenous arts and the role they
play in building relatedness and teaching survivance.