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 2000Songbird’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
From the margins to the margins until we seize the center of the page.