When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through

Note that this is a Sampler/Excerpt. This is not the full book.

United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo gathers the work of more than 160 poets, representing nearly 100 indigenous nations, into the first historically comprehensive Native poetry anthology.

This landmark anthology celebrates the indigenous peoples of North America, the first poets of this country, whose literary traditions stretch back centuries. Opening with a blessing from Pulitzer Prize–winner N. Scott Momaday, the book contains powerful introductions from contributing editors who represent the five geographically organized sections. Each section begins with a poem from traditional oral literatures and closes with emerging poets, ranging from Eleazar, a seventeenth-century Native student at Harvard, to Jake Skeets, a young Diné poet born in 1991, and including renowned writers such as Luci Tapahanso, Natalie Diaz, Layli Long Soldier, and Ray Young Bear. When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through offers the extraordinary sweep of Native literature, without which no study of American poetry is complete.

    
Joy Harjo is the author of eight poetry collections, including the national bestseller An American Sunrise, and a memoir, Crazy Brave. Named Poet Laureate in 2019, she lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

LeAnne Howe is the author, most recently, of Savage Conversations. She teaches at the University of Georgia - Athens.

Jennifer Elise Foerster is the author of Bright Raft in the Afterweather. She lives in California.