When Susan Landgraf received an Academy of American Poets' Laureate in 2020, her project proposal included teaching more than a dozen workshops on the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation that would culminate in a Muckleshoot poetry book. Landgraf sees writing as both opening oneself to vulnerability and to a feeling of empowerment. She believes that poetry can save lives, and worked to facilitate a teaching environment that welcomed each voice. Her exercises, prompts, and discussions sparked creativity and critical thinking, and invited young people and elders to reflect on their history, culture, and current lives in a meaningful way.
Ultimately, fifty-four poets—most from the Muckleshoot Tribal School—participated in the collection. Expressive and moving, their pieces are about searching and belonging. Loss and finding. The writers range from elementary school age to adult, but all share a common theme—a reaching back and a reaching forward—sometimes in the same poem. Their work highlights Muckleshoot history and culture, but also spotlights individual histories, lessons, and beliefs.
Muckleshoot is the Native name for the prairie on which the 6.128 square-mile reservation was established in 1857. Federally recognized as descendants of the Duwamish and Upper Puyallup people who inhabited Central Puget Sound thousands of years before non-Indian settlement, approximately 3,600 people live on the reservation, making the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe one of the largest Native American tribes in Washington State.