My gratitude with singing and some saxophone riffs to Suzanna Tamminen for her enthusiasm and belief in this project; to Stephanie Elliot for her support and encouragement; to LeAnne Fields for urging the project on; mvto to Becca Landsberry, Ruth Bible, and the rest of the Muscogee Nation News staff for their assistance; to Laura Coltelli for discernment, friendship, and the impeccable introduction; to Tanaya Winder for her assistance, precise words and thoughts; and—for my poetry, writing, and music ancestors and descendants—mvto, mvto.
“Exploring the Depths of Creation and Meaning” originally appeared in Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments, September 10, 2006. “You Might As Well Dance” was originally published in the winter 2008 issue of Humanities INTERVIEW; reprinted with permission of the Oklahoma Humanities Council. “The Craft of Soul Talk” is reprinted by permission of the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society, www.hocopolitso.org, and the Little Patuxent Review, www.littlepatuxentreview.org.
“Preface for She Had Some Horses” is used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. “Afterword from The Delicacy and Strength of Lace” is reprinted with permission of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org, from The Delicacy and Strength of Lace: Letters Between Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright, edited by Anne Wright. “In Honor of Patricia Grace” was first published in World Literature Today 83.3 (May–June 2009): 34–36; reprinted by permission. “I Used to Think a Poem Could Become a Flower” originally appeared in Ploughshares, December 2004.
Grateful acknowledgment is also made to the following: Triplopia, The Drunken Boat, Southern Scribe, El Molino Press, albuquerqueARTS, Multicultural Review, and UCLA’s Indigenous People’s Journal of Law, Culture and Resistance.
“Breakthrough over Michigan Dunes.” © Joy Harjo