This poem is a translation of my own work in Wazhazhe ie, a Siouan language that Wazhazhe people are now revitalizing in northeastern Oklahoma on the Osage reservation. Herman Mongrain Lookout developed the language’s orthography in the 2000s, which served to create a written language for Wazhazhe ie (which translates literally as “Osage talk”). This Wazhazhe author has written a collection of short stories incorporating Wazhazhe ie, and this poem serves as the dedication. The collection, A Calm & Normal Heart, is forthcoming from Unnamed Press later this year.
Read the poem this note is about, “The Spiders.”
Chelsea T. Hicks is an enrolled member of the Osage Nation and lives on ancestral land in Oklahoma. Her first book is A Calm & Normal Heart (Unnamed Press, 2022).