Poetry of Denise Sweet > Woodland Pattern Book Center

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Denise Sweet

Denise Sweet is an Anishinnaabe poet [White Earth] and

a Professor of Humanistic Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Her book Songs For Discharming (Greenfield Review Press, 1997) won the North American Native Authors First Book Award for Poetry.

"These pages take us on a rich and fascinating journey, transporting us through history on memory's voices, singing a new vision of the familiar. Though her subjects vary from a visit to the mission at White Earth to parking a car, Denise Sweet brings a freshness to each. The poems leave markers where they have touched us, places we will return to to remember the startling beauty of a phrase, the quiet wisdom of a story, the good humor of our poet companion. She carries us to the brink of discovery; her words push us over."

- Kim Blaeser

Right of Way

Denise Sweet

At Porkchop Road you enter
the jagged res world

with staggered pull-offs
and long stretches
of nothing and
no turn-arounds

once in awhile
a raccoon will argue
right of way down
an aspen corridor
and you come to a complete stop
he makes his point
and saunters off.

Although distance does not
matter, it's a long way
into the flat pine forest
wild turkeys with their mangled
voices chortle and wave crimson
waddles at you and you can grin
at the spectacle if you like
but they see no humor
in any of this.

from Nitaawichige: Selected Poetry and Prose by four Anishinaabe Writers

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