Celebrate Native American Heritage Month with a curated list of recommended poetry, books, and podcasts from NJP's Native American Unit!
We recently had the honor of hosting poet and essayist Rena Priest at an NJP gathering honoring Native American Heritage Month. Rena Priest is an enrolled member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation. She served as the 6th Washington State Poet Laureate (2021-2023) and is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. Rena shared her poem "Human Habits of Time" written for the Blak & Bright festival in Melbourne, Australia. Thank you, Rena, for sharing your beautiful words and insights with us!
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Learn more about Rena Priest’s work here. Watch the video on YouTube.
Poetry:
I Sing the Salmon Home – Rena Priest
An American Sunrise – Joy Harjo (or anything by her!)
Cloud Missives – Kenzie Allen
Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers – Jake Skeets
Books:
King County Library System: Native American and Alaskan Heritage Month Reads
Fiction:
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter – Stephen Graham Jones
The Only Good Indians – Stephen Graham Jones
The El – Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
The Berry Pickers – Amanda Peters
There There – Tommy Orange
The Night Watchman – Louise Erdrich
Calling for a Blanket Dance – Oscar Hokeah
Winter Counts – David Heska Wanbli Weiden
Where the Dead Sit Talking – Brandon Hobson
Empire of Wild – Cherie Dimaline
Crooked Hallelujah – Kelli Jo Ford
Never Whistle at Night (Anthology)
Passing Through a Prairie Country – Dennis E. Staples
Sufferance – Thomas King
Swim Home to the Vanished – Brendan Shay Basham
The Missing Morningstar and Other Stories – Stacie Shannon Denetsosie
Every Drop is a Man’s Nightmare – Megan Kamalei Kakimot
Old School Indian – Aaron John Curtis
Non-fiction:
Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer
Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto – Vine Deloria Jr.
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present – David Treuer Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement – Nick Estes
Heart Berries: A Memoir – Terese Marie Malihot
From the Hilltop (Native Storiers: A Series of American Narratives) – Toni Jensen
A Place to Stand – Jimmy Santiago Baca
Native American DVA – Kim Tallbear
Holding Our World Together: Ojibwe Women and the Survival of Community – Brenda Childs
The Seven Generations and the Seven Grandfather Teachings – James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw
Thinning Blood: Memoirs of Family, Myth, and Identity – Leah Myers
Podcasts:
This Land
The Red Nation Podcast
All my Relations
National Native News
Toasted Sister Podcast
Soundside: New documentary looks at why shipwrecks led to conflict in the PNW