Meet our Grantee-Partner: In-Na-Po
2023 In-Na-Po Mentoring Retreat fellows and faculty.
Mission: Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po) is a national Indigenous poetry community committed to mentoring emerging writers, nurturing the growth of Indigenous poetic practices, and raising the visibility of all Native Writers past, present, and future. In-Na-Po recognizes the role of poetry in sustaining tribal sovereign nations and Native languages.
Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po) supports the writing, performance, and publication of poetry by student and adult writers who are members of tribal communities in the US and its territories. Founded by Anishinaabe poet Dr. Kimberly M. Blaeser at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2020, one month before the COVID-19 pandemic, In-Na-Po is led by staff and volunteers throughout the US. In-Na-Po strives to increase the literary platforms available to tribal communities and raise awareness of Native peoples, voices, and realities.
With a long oral history in stories, songs, and languages developed in relationship to the music of place, poetics have always supported Indigenous cultural values and practices. Ever since colonization, Native poets have written in English, often in addition to writing in their Indigenous languages. However, they have lacked visibility and recognition for their contributions to American poetry. In-Na-Po brings overdue attention to past and present Indigenous writers while expanding access to Indigenous traditional knowledge and artways.
Poetry also plays an important role in sustaining tribal sovereign nations and Native languages. Many Indigenous poets write in service to their tribal nations through language revitalization and social justice advocacy. In-Na-Po sustains these efforts by encouraging writing in Indigenous languages and providing access to threatened Native languages in translated literature and performance.
In-Na-Po poets with Joy Harjo in Washington, DC
In-Na-Po connects writers to conferences, festivals, campuses, museums, libraries, community centers, and virtual engagements for building their craft and amplifying their poetry. Since its founding in 2020, members of the In-Na-Po community have been published in more than 40 journals and 15 anthologies. Individual poets have released or have publishing contracts for 16 poetry books. In addition to print publications, many In-Na-Po poets have had their poems produced on stage, presented on podcasts, and included in exhibitions and videos, like the recent video project, “Songs at the Confluence: Indigenous Poets on Place.”
In-Na-Po’s mentoring retreats provide a nurturing environment that allows writers from tribal communities to experience liberation and validation. These week-long in-person residencies provide In-Na-Po fellows with the opportunity to engage with and learn from writers from similar backgrounds. Attendees appreciate that the mentoring retreats give them room to write without the need to explain their history, defend their identity, or justify their literary aesthetic. The first mentoring retreat was held in Washington, DC in 2022 in conjunction with the close of US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s term, which the fellows celebrated at the Library of Congress.
A fall 2022 Equity in Verse grant from the Poetry Foundation has led In-Na-Po to strengthen programming and infrastructure, broadening connections within Indigenous communities and beyond. While In-Na-Po remains primarily volunteer-led, the grant allowed for an increase in paid employee hours to update the website, create a YouTube channel, and expand In-Na-Po’s presence on social media. In-Na-Po also hired a part-time operations and programming manager who assisted with organizing the second annual mentoring retreat and will assist with the development of the third retreat in 2024, which will be held in Minnesota’s Twin Cities.