As Native peoples, music permeates our lives in various and diverse ways. It may manifest in traditional songs, soundtracks to personal histories, memory, acts of love, resistance, poetics. In “BLACKLIST ME” (Academy of American Poets), which this exhibition draws its title from, poet Kinsale Drake (Diné) writes about destroying and re-centering the canon, penning love poems to Native rock icon Buffy Sainte-Marie, and working against erasure through mechanisms of joy and community. ⁠
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As Indigenous writers working against and within what constitutes the so-called “American” canon, how can our words lift up, celebrate, re-center, or pay homage to genealogies of Native music, whatever that may mean for us? How can they locate intersecting violence between settler colonialism and acts of erasure within the literary, musical, and broader worlds? Or, how can they exist joyously or tremendously on their own, as part of what has always come before?⁠
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The Chapter House is accepting submissions for our new exhibit, BLACKLIST ME, featuring virtual and in-person programming opportunities for featured and guest poets and musicians. We are seeking poetry (2-3 pieces submitted per person) that engages with what Native music may mean to you—in conversation with Native musicians, inspired by the movement and timbre of certain music, in response to songs or memory or history. See Hanif Abdurraqib, Joy Harjo’s poem-songs, Esther Belin’s “Bluesing on the Brown Vibe.”⁠
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We also are accepting submissions of musical files or links to songs (1 per person for consideration; if already public, with permission of the producer/publisher) and visual art pieces inspired by the theme to be featured in the exhibit.⁠
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Submit your poems via GoogleForm below. If you are submitting a music piece and/or visual art piece, please email info@thechapterhouse.org with a high resolution file, a short bio which includes your pronouns and tribal affiliation, and social media handles. Email info@thechapterhouse.org with questions!⁠