Verse Takes Flight: A Poetry Book Club at Lofty Pigeon Books
Schedule
Mon May 25 2026 at 06:00 pm to 07:00 pm
UTC-04:00Location
Lofty Pigeon Books, Church Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, USA | Brooklyn, NY
About this Event
In May, we'll discuss Whereas by Layli Long Soldier—an inimitable collection that cuts through the language of American empire and wrestles the narrative back into the hands of indigenous peoples.
We'll begin each meeting by introducing ourselves to each other and reading 1-2 poems together, then use the remaining time for reflection and sharing.
Though it's not necessary to read the book to attend, it is encouraged for lively discussion. Get 10% off Whereas with promo code BOOKCLUB online or by mentioning the book club at in-store checkout!
About Whereas
WHEREAS her birth signaled the responsibility as mother to teach what it is to be Lakota therein the question: what did I know about being Lakota? Signaled panic, blood rush my embarrassment. What did I know of our language but pieces? Would I teach her to be pieces. Until a friend comforted, Don’t worry, you and your daughter will learn together. Today she stood sunlight on her shoulders lean and straight to share a song in Diné, her father’s language. To sing she motions simultaneously with her hands; I watch her be in multiple musics.
—from “WHEREAS Statements”
WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. “I am,” she writes, “a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation—and in this dual citizenship I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.” This strident, plaintive book introduces a major new voice in contemporary literature.
About Layli Long Soldier
Layli Long Soldier earned a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA with honors from Bard College. She is the author of the chapbook Chromosomory (2010) and the full-length collection Whereas (2017), which won the National Books Critics Circle award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has been a contributing editor to Drunken Boat and poetry editor at Kore Press; in 2012, her participatory installation, Whereas We Respond, was featured on the Pine Ridge Reservation. In 2015, Long Soldier was awarded a National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry. She was awarded a Whiting Writer’s Award in 2016.
Long Soldier is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Where is it happening?
Lofty Pigeon Books, Church Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, USA, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00
