Bitterroot
Abena Songbird
These poems offer surprising images that are stunning and fresh. . . new songs to our ears.
It's like being in a circle, hearing the diversity of metaphors, from the street to the
forest, from a fresh water river to the sewers of a city. . .
Abena Songbird's voice is daring and real.
–Janice Mirikitani , San Francisco Poet Laureate 2000
Songbird's work in Bitterroot is stark and tender, has wisdom and real information for modern human beings. It rises out of and continues the Native tradition of Mary TallMountain. Poems like One Wail Rising invent and carry forward what it means to be Indian in urban America. There is an authentic and valuable voice here. –Duane BigEagle
About Abena Songbird
Some Information
Abena Songbird, is a songwriter, singer, poet, and member of the Missisquoi Abenaki tribe of Vermont. When she lived in Oakland, she worked with the Upper Room and performedwith her band, The Songbird and the Moor. Her CD is entitled They're Calling Us Home is available fom Freedom Voices.
More recently Abena has worked for First People's Fund of Rapid City, Co-coordinated the Native Voice Film Festival 2004 in Rapid City and is an Arts & Entertainment Correspondant for the Lakota Journal Newspaper. She is currently working on her second book of poetry.
