Description

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A poetic re-visioning of narratives of violence against women and nature

In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful is a meditation on water, land, women, and violent environmental changes as they affect both the natural world and human migration. The poet reckons with the unsettling realities that women experience, questioning the cause and effect of events and asking why stories of oppression are so often simply accepted as the only stories. Alutiiq language is used throughout these poems that are in conversation with history, ancestors, and an uncertain future, in imagery that moves in waves, returning again and again to the ocean, and a deep visioning of the "current."

Excerpt from IN THE FIELD

They asked me if I was a citizen.

They wanted to know what I had seen/
I had heard/
this was only a test:

Look at the mark and tell them what you see.

...]

About the Author

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ABIGAIL CHABITNOY (Amherst, MA) is a Koniag descendent and a member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak, Alaska. Her first book, How to Dress a Fish, won the Colorado Book Award in the Poetry category and was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize. She is an assistant professor at UMass Amherst.