Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry

Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University, 2007. First printing. 349 pp., 5.5 x 8.5 inches. Perfect-bound in printed card covers. Issued as the Winter 2007 issue of To Topos: Poetry International, published by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at OSU. As new.

An extraordinary multilingual anthology, with seventy-six contributors, bringing together a vast range of "hemispheric and oceanic indigenous" poets, which (in the words of the editor) "serves as an inlet to vast multi-cultural / multi-dimensional diversity of peoples whose presence extinguishes the very intention of colonization to a great degree." Includes many bilingual or trilingual entries (with translations from Kamsa, Quechua, Mayan, Mapuche, Cherokee, and Spanish).

Among familiar contributors can be found Sherwin Bitsui, Diane Glancy, Orlando White, Heid Erdrich, Lee Maracle, Lance Henson, Joy Harjo, Jack Forbes, Trevino Brings Plenty, Luke Warm Water, Janet Campbell Hale, and Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, but more remarkable perhaps is the large proportion of previously unpublished authors, ranging across what we still call the Americas.

Long out of print, this book is available again through the surfacing of the last remaining copies from the publisher's back inventory. As such, the copies are essentially as new. To Topos: Poetry International was founded by Roger Weaver, and edited (at the time of this anthology) by Joseph Ohmann-Krause and Eric Wayne Dickey; Allison Adelle Hedge Coke served as guest editor for this issue.