WHEREAS

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2017

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Poem Analysis

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Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“Talent” by Layli Long Soldier (2017)

“Talent” appears in the collection, WHEREAS. Written in four prose blocks, the poem uses first-person voice and no punctuation to create an interior landscape that jumps from image to image while the speaker reckons with killing a goose with a bow and arrow on her “first try” (Line 1).

“38” by Layli Long Soldier (2017)

This poem appears in the first part of the collection, WHEREAS. With grammatical precision, “38” reveals the horror of which language is capable in a series of seemingly dry statements that recall the hanging of 38 Dakota men, ordered by President Abraham Lincoln after the Sioux Uprising in 1862.

“Peace Path” by Heid E. Erdrich (2016)

This poem by Heid E. Erdrich may be read multiple ways: left-to-right, line-for-line, for example, or as two separate vertical columns. The setting of the poem is the North Dakota grasslands. Subjects include histories of tribes of Native Americans’s migration across and removal from the prairies, as well as the history of the grasslands proper.

“Passive Voice” by Laura Da’ (2015)

In this poem, a teacher puts pressure on the English language to help her students recognize the passive voice, and considers whether the lesson will expand into the world and onto their summer vacations, where the language of benign-seeming historical markers institutionally blurs violence.

“Manhattan is a Lenape Word” by Natalie Diaz (2020)

This poem is from Diaz’s 2021 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, Postcolonial Love Poem (2020). Through imagery that leaps through history and the body in shifting light, the poem asks questions about identity and erasure.

Further Literary Resources

WHEREAS (2017)

Written in two parts, Layli Long Soldier’s debut full-length collection of poems won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2017, as well as the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2018. In the second section, the first of three parts is entitled “The Whereas Statements,” which uses the language of the Native American Apology Resolution to dig into notions of memory, identity, forgiveness, and historical and perpetuated violence.

“S.J.Res.14 - A joint resolution to acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States“ by Sen. Sam Brownback (2009)

Otherwise referred to as the Native American Apology Resolution, this is the document drafted by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and introduced to the United States Senate on April 30, 2009, from which Long Soldier took inspiration for her book’s titular poem. The summary of the resolution contains, but is not limited to, the following statements regarding its purpose, which: “Recognizes the special legal and political relationship the Indian tribes have with the United States and the solemn covenant with the land we share”; “Commends and honors the Native Peoples for the thousands of years that they have stewarded and protected this land”; and, finally, “Prohibits anything in this Joint Resolution from authorizing or supporting any claim against the United States or serving as a settlement of any claim against the United States.”

No public announcement attended the resolution, and no representatives of any Native American tribes were present nor made aware of the apology.

“The Sovereign Poet” (2020)

In this February 18, 2020, episode of Poetry Off the Shelf from Poetry Foundation, Helena de Groot speaks with Layli Long Soldier about her poetry and process.

“A Native American Poet Excavates the Language of Occupation” by Natalie Diaz (2017)

In this review, which appeared in The New York Times on August 4, 2017, poet and critic Natalie Diaz considers Layli Long Soldiers collection, WHEREAS, in terms of wide literary influence and experimentation in form and language, as well as its subject matter. Diaz addresses the way in which Long Soldier underscores “the violent capacity of language” and its role in perpetuating historical violence.

“The Language of Apology in Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas” by Natasha Balwit (2017)

This article, which appeared in The Atlantic on April 26, 2017, draws attention to elements of intimacy and alienation in Long Soldier’s collection WHEREAS. The article examines numerous ways the poet considers apology, and how language can both obfuscate meaning and cut clean to the bone.

New Poets of Native Nations (2018)

Edited by Heid E. Erdrich and published through Graywolf Press, New Poets of Native Nations is an anthology of poems written in the 21st century by 21 Native American poets of numerous tribes. The anthology highlights a diversity of voices, forms, and languages.