You can purchase "Songs Blood Deep," by Gwen Nell Westerman here.
I loved Gwen Nell Westerman’s work, and thought the steadfast observational powers on display were the work of a poet truly interested in engaging with what is in front of her.
I appreciate her Q+A here as well:
On the importance of writing in both the English and Dakota languages:
“Dakota is the language of this land. It’s important for me to include the language in what I write so that people will see that it’s more than language, that it’s a descriptive-sounding language and that it’s important enough to be in books, quoted in poetry, out in the world and places where people least expect it. There’s a glossary in the back of Follow the Blackbirds. My husband and I talked about that for a while because there are some people who think you don’t need to have a glossary or pronunciation guide—people can figure it out for themselves, or it’s our language and other people don’t need to know how to pronounce it. But we have only a handful of first-language Dakota speakers, and they’re getting up there in age. There are many second-language learners, some more proficient than others, and there are a lot of people who want to learn but are afraid. It was important to include a glossary, a pronunciation guide, and a translation so my work can also be a place to learn the language and not be afraid of it.”
Let us all feel like we do not have to be afraid of language.
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