Keynote
An extraordinary work of poetry, essay, and artwork by Layli Long Soldier, author of the award-winning WHEREAS
Book Title
We
Cover Image
Poem Excerpt
X marks the heart of our treaty, which we generally agree upon
as: land.
X marks our treaty as an agreement that commences “from this
day forward.” Upon signing, that day, our leaders understood
that the terms of this contract began. And upon signing, we
agreed to those terms without an ending.
Yet X marks the strange ways of time—how a century ago can
feel like yesterday. And “from this day forward” feels like
never.
—from “135 X’s”
Body
In We, Layli Long Soldier examines what it means to be in community, to be in relation with family, nation, history, and language. We is the first-person plural, the pronoun of inclusion in English. It is also Wé, the Lakota word meaning “blood”—what is shared and what is shed.
In this ingenious and insightful arrangement of poems, lyric essays, and her own visual artworks presented in full color, Long Soldier creates unique spaces of collaboration, mentorship, and shared knowledge. The 184 X’s signed to a broken treaty, the fringes of a winged dress braided in honor of children lost to Indian boarding schools, and intricate Lakota star quilts become shapes and patterns that convey collective kinship, memory, and grievance. “From this day forward,” Long Soldier writes, “I declare a war of language.”
We is a visionary new collection by a writer and artist whose unfolding works are among the most groundbreaking of our time.
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