{"product_id":"9781555979614","title":"Whereas","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe astonishing, powerful debut by the winner of a 2016 Whiting Writers' Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWHEREAS 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.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—from “WHEREAS Statements”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWHEREAS\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47128527765744,"sku":"9781555979614","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781555979614_p0.jpg?v=1763753792","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781555979614","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}