Description
Book SynopsisIn Cheryl Savageau’s new book of poetry, Mother/Land, she radically re-maps New England as Native American space. Savageau retells and re-imagines creation stories, revealing a landscape of trees, ponds, rivers and mountains rich in meaning for Abenaki people, and weaves traditional, personal and family stories, with stories of colonization and resistance. Savageau’s “unhistory” tells the stories of her people without privileging the moment of contact with Europe as the defining moment for viewing the culture.
Mother/Land is beaded with gems from her mother’s jewel box—poems that tell stories of her mother’s life, and the complexities of survival and love in a family of mixed heritage.
Savageau’s work signals the reemergence of a people who have been described as “hiding in plain sight.” In contrast to stereotypical associations of Native Americans with “Mother Earth,” this poetry highlights the bittersweet complexities of the relationship between a woman and her homeland, whose bodies seem to be constantly under siege.
Table of Contents
- MOTHER/LAND
- First Diamond
- Amber Necklace
- Turtle
- The Moon’s Other Face
- First Woman
- Opals
- Game Bag
- Ant Tree
- Emerald
- Hair
- The Willow at Flint Pond
- At Sugarloaf
- Fertility Figure
- Twentieth Anniversary Diamond
- Algonkian Paradise
- Race Point, Provincetown
- Grand Banks
- Pies
- Bread
- Where I Want Them
- Swift River
- Red
- GHOSTS AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD
- Garnet
- Hummingbird Moth
- Cod
- Everywhere
- Before Moving on to Plymouth from Cape Cod – 1620
- Grandmother Woodchuck Talks to the Women of Salem
- Englishmen’s Footprints
- Newfoundland Walking With Joseph Brant
- Daughter’s of the King
- Mendel’s Milkmen
- Pink Sapphire
- The Kneeling Girl
- Mexican Amethyst
- My Mother’s Pearl Cuffs
- Nesting
- No Pity
- Beauty Tip
- Surrogate Mother
- For Lenny, For Lisa
- The Liar
- Aftermath
- Rose Quartz Necklace
- Tradition
- Ring of Protection
- Poison in the Pond
- Smallpox
- Indian Blood
- Graduate School First Semester
- Chandelier
- Crayons
- Pink Ice with Marcasite
- Pemigewasset
- VISITING THE LAND OF THE DEAD
- North Country: Visiting the Land of the Dead
- Entangled
- Morning: UMass Medical Center
- Hurricane – North Truro
- Side Pass
- Night Sky
- Rosary
- Grandmother Woodchuck As St. Ann
- Jewel Box
- DressingUp
- Piano Dream
- Purple Ice
- Figure Eight
- Like A Good Death
- INTO GREEN
- Peridot
- Blue House
- For the Boy Standing Under the Drainpipe
- Waiting for Feathers
- Convent School
- Underage
- Onyx Necklace With Pearls
- You Bring Out the Butch In Me
- Marinade
- Deep Winter
- Wedding in A Burning Building
- Into Green
- Summer Language Lesson
- How to Get There
- Gamebag Dream
- Aquamarine
- Heart
- Grandmother Knits
