I'm happy to announce this week's publication of House of Grace, House of Blood from the University of Arizona Press, which explores intersections of archival artifacts and the personal, with focus on an incident of Indigenous genocide. The book responds to a rich archive: oral and written accounts, maps, dances, and archaeology about the Gnadenhutten, Ohio, massacre of Indigenous people by renegade Revolutionary soldiers. Benjamin Franklin commented on this tragedy as well as the Shawnee leader Tecumseh. The book's arc follows a sequence of consequences, including deforestation, diaspora of Delawares, restoration, stereotyping, and continuance of traditions and spirituality. Please contact the press for desk and review copies. Please note these appearance opportunities:
Oct. 19, Sat., Washington DC,
Politics & Prose, reading with Christian Teresi and Jason Schneiderman,
6 pm, 1324 4th Street NE, Washington, D.C. 20002, (202) 544-4452 http://ww.politics-prose.com/poetry-panel
Nov. 12, Wed. ,
San Francisco, Bird & Beckett bookstore, Denise Low and Kim Shuck 7
pm., free https://birdbeckett.com/
Nov. 14, Thurs.
Santa Rosa Arts Center, Speakeasy Reading Series, Denise Low, open mic
following, 7 pm, 312 South A St., Santa Rosa, music-Jeff Nathanson free, https://santarosaartscenter.org/index.php/speakeasy-2-2/
Nov. 15, Fri., Healdsburg, The 222-Paul
Mahder Gallery, Denise Low and Lucille Lang Day, Indigenous Thanksgiving Traditions – The 222,
7 pm, 222 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg CA, $20
Nov. 17, Sun., Sebastopol,
Wom-ba meeting 1 pm
Dec. 1, Sun.
Berkeley, Poetry Flash, Denise Low and Lucille Lang Day, 3 pm Art House
Gallery & Cultural Center (to be confirmed), 2905 Shattuck Avenue,
refreshments, free (poetryflash.org).
March 29, Sat., Los Angeles AWP conference, Denise
Low Bookfair Reading with Scarlet Tanager Press, 1:45 p.m.
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“Justice is out of the purview of poetry,
unfortunately. Otherwise, the ancestors of the ninety-six Lenapes killed by
rogue Pennsylvania militia men in 1782 might read this collection and find some
much deserved peace.”—FOREWORD Reviews
“House of Grace, House of Blood is
a masterpiece of both documentary poetry and Indigenous storytelling. Denise
Low’s exploration of history, memory, genealogy, and identity acknowledges the
complexity of her bloodlines and the possibility of healing. Throughout, her
poems become ‘portals for hearing pleas / and scriptures.’”—Craig Santos Perez,
author of From Unincorporated Territory [åmot] and National Book
Award winner
“Denise Low’s House of Grace, House of Blood chronicles
the epigenetic expression of generational trauma left by the massacre of
ninety-six Lenape Christian relatives inside a church in 1782. However, these
poems also suggest epigenetic expressions of ancestral healing and
reconciliation with living within contradictions, a powerful Indigenous
inheritance that will leave you dancing in joyous resistance.”—Edgar Gabriel
Silex, author of Acts of Love
Biography: Former Kansas Poet Laureate Denise Low
is author of House of Grace, House of Blood,
from the University of Arizona Press’s Sun Tracks poetry series (Oct.
2024). Her other books include the memoir The
Turtle's Beating Heart: One Family's Story of Lenape Survival
(University of Nebraska Press), Jigsaw
Puzzling: Essays (Meadowlark Press, Coffin Award), and Casino
Bestiary: Poems (Spartan Press). Low is a founding board member of the
national Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po) and past board member and
president of Associated Writers and Writing Programs. She has been visiting
professor at the University of Kansas and University of Richmond. She taught at
Haskell Indian Nations University 27 years, where she founded the creative
writing program. She and her husband Thomas Weso founded Mammoth Publications,
an independent press that specializes in Indigenous American and literary
works. www.deniselow.net
More praise:
“House of Grace, House of Blood moves far beyond
the personal narrative to create an experience that clearly identifies the
blade edge that is so-called American history, and invites the reader to
consider how exclusion and connection hone it.”—Mihku Paul, author of 20th
Century PowWow Playland
“This account of the violence of ignorance and the
heartbreak of broken trust is all too frequent—and all too frequently silenced,
ignored, miswritten, or forgotten in our collective societal reckoning with the
truth of our nation’s founding. And yet what Low seeks in House of
Grace, House of Blood, what we who are compelled to bear witness in our
verse seek in the telling, in the remembering, is a way forward through
healing. The facts speak for themselves. The poet speaks for the dead—and those
yet living.”—Abigail Chabitnoy, author of In the Current Where Drowning
Is Beautiful
“With documentary and lyric intensity, Low claims poetry
itself as memorial in her extraordinary new book.”—Hadara Bar-Nadav, author
of The Animal Is Chemical
“The versatile and talented Denise Low ventures into
documentary poetry in House of Grace, House of Blood with
astonishing results. Through personal reflection, memories, imagined stories,
chants, and collages of primary texts, she pieces together the story of one of
the most heinous crimes against Indigenous people in North America. For Low,
there are more questions than answers. These poems cinch the connections
between religious and nationalist fervor, racial capitalism, and Indigenous
survivance.”—Joseph Harrington, author of Disapparitions
