Wolf You Watch the Land

You keep watching us

Boozhoo, indinawemaaganidog! Aaniin! That is to say hello, all of my relatives! Welcome to another edition of An Irritable Métis. At some point I’ve sat down almost every day for the past week or more with the intent to write a newsletter but I keep getting pulled into other things. Yet against all odds I have persevered and here I am again, finally, in your inbox. I appreciate your patience!

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Ma’iingan, the Wolf, as rendered by Bronwen, a young student in the Flathead (I think)

A couple weeks ago I was putting together some stuff for a reading I was doing somewhere. I pulled my beat-up OG copy of OSJ out to see if there was anything there I hadn’t used in a while that would be relevant to what I had in mind for the theme of the event. I found this piece of paper folded and stuck between the pages. It is a drawing and a note and a poem from a student who gave it to me after I finished a visit to her classroom; I‘m pretty sure it was in Kalispell, or maybe even Whitefish. I can’t be certain! Clearly I talked then about Ma’iingan, the wolf, but I can’t say I remember the context. I have a vague recollection of her approaching me as I packed up my stuff, that we spoke briefly and she gave it to me. I read it then, and thanked her, then slipped it in the book where it was ultimately forgotten … or maybe where it waited to be seen again when it became necessary.

Ma’iingan has been much on my mind, so much so that I was intending to mention her again as part of the reading I was preparing. Her unexpected appearance from the pages of my book sent a little chill up and down my spine. It was a reminder from her that she knows she is on my mind, and that she is paying attention to how I’m living.

Ma’iingan, for those of you who haven’t been here long enough to have read my mention of this before, is one of the relatives referenced in the Seven Grandfather Teachings of my Anishinaabe people. She represents Humility, or Dbaadendiziwin.

“Humility is represented by the wolf. For the wolf, life is lived for his pack and the ultimate shame is to be outcast. Humility is to know that you are a sacred part of creation. Live life selflessly and not selfishly. Respect your place and carry your pride with your people and praise the accomplishments of all. Do not become arrogant and self-important. Find balance within yourself and all living things.”

Humility has been the focus of many of my reflections for weeks now.

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I’m writing from the Cincinnati airport which isn’t in Cincinnati at all or even Ohio. It’s in Kentucky and I’m just not going to think too hard about it. I am headed home after having been in Cincinnati for several days attending Winter Institute, the enormous yearly trade convention for independent bookstores. Besides there being a bunch of workshops and seminars and keynote speakers prattling on about how to be better at the book business, it’s also an opportunity for publishers to share their upcoming releases with booksellers – word is there was something like 900 of the miscreants¹ in attendance – and wine and dine them a little bit, etc. Probably every industry has conferences like this.

This time of year most bookstores are putting orders together for summer books and, given Becoming Little Shell is one of those, Milkweed brought me out as their featured writer. I got to talk to a lot of cool people, sign a pile of advanced reading copies of the book, and otherwise hang with a community I’ve long been a part of and adore. Writing may be how I make my living but I remain a fan first, and once a bookseller, always a bookseller. I was giddy to meet a couple other writers I deeply admire: Hanif Abdurraqib and adrienne maree brown. Then I got to share a signing table and a multi-hour evening hang-out session with the legendary Paul Yamazaki of City Lights Books in San Francisco. What a thrill that was! He’s been a bookseller at City Lights for more than half a century and is funny and full of stories and just a joy to be around. Paul Yamazaki! City Lights!

Yes, we WERE having this much fun!

I’m glad the week went well because I went into it with no small amount of anxiety and trepidation. Writing a book is a big deal and there’s no guarantee I’ll ever get to publish another one with this amount of industry support and interest. It is a project that I’ve been working on in one fashion or another for more than a decade. That’s twenty percent of my natural born life! And here I was about to officially put it out in the world, a book that I could count on my fingers how many people have actually read. I am proud of my achievement and overjoyed at the opportunity to share the story of the Little Shell, but I also recognize I am opening myself to all manner of criticism and one star reviews and all of those things. And for it to succeed, I have to promote it relentlessly. I’m often uncomfortable about that but it is the path I’ve chosen.

I’ve been on quite a roll for the past half-decade or so. I’ve been selected as Montana’s poet laureate. I make a big deal about that because for poetry to matter to people those of us who labor at it need to make it a big deal. I’m about to publish my third book; my first one won the Montana Book Award, and there’s a lot of buzz around this third one. It seems 2024/25 is going to be a continuation of this run of good fortune and I am eager to see how it plays out.

With these successes comes a lot of attention and it has been almost entirely positive. This is where “humility” comes in. I can’t let it go to my head and the last thing I want to do is be perceived as arrogant. Even mentioning any of my successes feels like bravado and I am sensitive to that perception. I shouldn’t care what people think of me and just keep on the business of getting the job done, but I’d be lying if I claimed not to. As content (and weary) as I am in the aftermath of the conference, as happy as I am that BLS is in the hands of a bunch of people now, there’s a part of me worried that I came off as a jerk to someone. There’s nothing I can do about that and it’s foolish to even think about it … but here I am, thinking about it.

In many Native cultures we are discouraged from drawing attention to ourselves. We should “live our lives for our pack.” There is a lot of lateral violence in the Native community in particular when anyone has success and I am not immune to it. I think about it all the time and I know I make mistakes. I can also say that the most important thing to me about any of this is that every time I have an opportunity to speak, I am speaking about the Little Shell. I want people to know who we are and my successes give me a gigantic opportunity to do that.

I enjoy getting in front of people and talking about the things I care about. I love sharing my enthusiasm and love for the world. I think on my best days I am able to reach people and that is important to me. Humility isn’t just a lack of arrogance, it is also a recognition of the roles we have been chosen to play in our communities. I told both Hanif Abdurraqib and adrienne maree brown that what I admired most in them is how they stand up for their communities, the courage they display when they don’t back down from what they believe in. These are perilous times. We need to be there for our packs. We all have roles to play.

This is a long and meandering way to say I am going to remain very visible in getting the word out about this story I’ve been called to tell. Not at all costs, but maybe some, as there is risk in anything meaningful we set out to do, but we can’t do it blindly. I can’t control how people will respond to the book, what they think of me, or any of that. All I can control is how I go out into the world, and I am going to continue reflecting on, and practicing, humility.

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Instagram

With so much more going on than I care to burden my newsletter subscribers with I’ve decided to revive an Instagram account. You may follow me HERE if you are into that kind of thing. I’m not sure I am. In fact I know I’m not but it’s worth a try and it’s not without trepidation that I make the venture. Social media culture is often toxic and like anyone else I let it get to me too often. This time around I intend to be better about that. The nice thing is if it starts to eat my brain matter I can always put the kibosh on it. Again.

There will be some small overlap with this newsletter but not much. It seems like it could be fun to share images from the road as I drive all over Montana as poet laureate, or images from my wandering in service to promoting and celebrating events around the upcoming release of Becoming Little Shell, etc. So long as it’s fun, anyway. It will be interesting.

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Preorder Update

Preorders for Becoming Little Shell are still going strong but there’s no time like the present if you haven’t ordered yours yet. You may CLICK HERE to make that happen! For all the ways preorders benefit books – allegedly or not – I’ll say with 100% honesty that I want folks to buy the book because I’d like to sell enough copies for it to earn out. What that means is it sells to a point where more money is made than what I received as an advance; until then I don’t make another penny off BLS until it sells somewhere around 5000 copies, give or take. Once it breaks that 5000 copy barrier, I start getting royalties. I would love for that to happen. Royalties would be a nice boost to how I earn my living as a writer and I’m not going to suggest otherwise.

It should be noted that the efforts writing here are part of that living and I don’t take it lightly. This is as much “the work” as BLS is and I enjoy it even when I struggle to arrange my schedule to accommodate it. I deeply appreciate your time and attention and how you make it possible for me to live this dream of being a full-time writer.

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And Finally….

On the backside of her drawing Bronwen not only shared a short note thanking me for visiting but also a lovely little haiku. This is the kind of thing that makes my irritable heart want to burst. What a gift indeed! ❤️

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Miigwech, as always, my friends, for hanging in there. I appreciate you!

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1. Miscreants, yes … but of the highest, most delightful order.