We - by Layli Long Soldier (Paperback)

About the Book

An extraordinary work of poetry, essay, and artwork by Layli Long Soldier, author of the award-winning WHEREAS

Book Synopsis

An extraordinary work of poetry, essay, and artwork by Layli Long Soldier, author of the award-winning WHEREAS

In We, Layli Long Soldier examines what it means to be in community, to be in relation with family, nation, history, and language. We is the first-person plural, the pronoun of inclusion in English. It is also Wé, the Lakota word meaning "blood"--what is shared and what is shed.

In this ingenious and insightful arrangement of poems, lyric essays, and her own visual artworks presented in full color, Long Soldier creates unique spaces of collaboration, mentorship, and shared knowledge. The 184 X's signed to a broken treaty, the fringes of a winged dress braided in honor of children lost to Indian boarding schools, and intricate Lakota star quilts become shapes and patterns that convey collective kinship, memory, and grievance. "From this day forward," Long Soldier writes, "I declare a war of language."

We is a visionary new collection by a writer and artist whose unfolding works are among the most groundbreaking of our time.

Review Quotes

"Layli Long Soldier's communal, revelatory, intimate collection vibrates with visual and poetic meaning. We, or Wé, is an offering to the best within us all."--Louise Erdrich

"With brilliant linguistic acrobatics and in kinship with family and community, the lyric-essay-artwork-memoir We . . . is one of the most generous and open reading experiences I have yet encountered. One can only have gratitude for language's possibilities in the hands of this extraordinary poet."--Claudia Rankine

"We is an astonishing anti-treatise treatise brim with tenderness, community, and collaboration. . . . Language is Long Soldier's reparative instrument, and she, our guiding constellation to turn to as we navigate the turbulent past and present. . . . This is a sky-breaking magnum opus."--Diana Khoi Nguyen

"In We (Wé), Layli Long Soldier leads us across her poetry, storytelling, and visual artwork, creating vivid and captivating imagery, both on the page and within our imaginations. . . . I felt my life reflected as a mother, a Lakota woman, a tribal and US citizen, a human, and a relative."--Dyani White Hawk

About the Author

Layli Long Soldier is a poet, artist, and citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation. She is the author of WHEREAS, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Jean Stein Award. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.