Tacey M. Atsitty melds inherited forms such as the sonnet with her Diné and religious experiences to boldly and beautifully reveal a love that can last for eternity. Celebrating and examining the depth and range of her relationships with men, Atsitty tenderly shares experiences of being taught to fish by her father, and, in other poems, reveals intimate moments of burgeoning romantic love with vulnerability and honesty. Grounded in a world both old and constantly remade, she reminds us that it is only by risking everything that we can receive more than we ever imagined.   

Tacey M. Atsitty, Diné (Navajo), is Tsénahabiłnii (Sleep Rock People) and born for Ta’neeszahnii (Tangle People). The recipient of numerous prizes and fellowships, Atsitty is an inaugural Indigenous Nations Poets fellow and holds degrees from Brigham Young University, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and Cornell University. The author of Rain Scald, she is the director of the Navajo Film Festival, a member of the Advisory Board for BYU’s Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, and a board member for Lightscatter Press. Atsitty is a PhD student in creative writing at Florida State University.
 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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A February Snow
Sonnet for My Wrist
Bird Dance    
Round Our Wrists
Out of Star
Sang Over
Chafe
Apricot Lament
Hole through the Rock
Querido Apu
Lace Sonnet
Still Life Morrow
River Silt
The Night My Wrist Broke    
Last Night, Bleeding

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A Blood Letting
On Innocence
When It Was Time
Scaling the Black
It’s Hard to Write a Love Poem When
Candy Dish Sonnet
Into Rain
Of Ribbon
The Warbler
Night Portrait with Cannon Fire
Pollenback
Portrait of a Gray Room

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Lacing

Acknowledgments