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(At) Wrist
Tacey M. Atsitty
Wisconsin Poetry Series
Sean Bishop and Jesse Lee Kercheval, Series Editors
Ms. Magazine Best Poetry of '23-'24
Winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, selected by Eduardo C. Corral
“As formally seductive as it is subversive, Tacey Atsitty’s (At) Wrist is a poetry of deep longing and praise, of loss and the courage of resilience. Anchored in an intimate vision of connectedness, her syntax works its way beyond thought’s limit, setting its hook in the terrain of memory and dream. This is a book I will return to for what no other poet I know delivers with such daring and vulnerability, a poetry wherein time, body, and the natural world are presented as a singularity otherwise known as love.”
—James Kimbrell, author of Smote
we approach land and sky, kneeling together on that day
Tacey M. Atsitty melds inherited forms such as the sonnet with her Diné and religious experiences to boldly and beautifully reveal a love that can last for eternity. Celebrating and examining the depth and range of her relationships with men, Atsitty tenderly shares experiences of being taught to fish by her father, and, in other poems, reveals intimate moments of burgeoning romantic love with vulnerability and honesty. Grounded in a world both old and constantly remade, she reminds us that it is only by risking everything that we can receive more than we ever imagined.
All I know is it’s the season
when wind comes crying, like a baby
whose head knocks a pew during the passing
of the sacrament, that silence—
her long inhale filling with pain.
—Excerpt from “A February Snow”
Tacey M. Atsitty, Diné (Navajo), is Tsénahabiłnii (Sleep Rock People) and born for Ta’neeszahnii (Tangle People). The recipient of numerous prizes and fellowships, Atsitty is an inaugural Indigenous Nations Poets fellow and holds degrees from Brigham Young University, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and Cornell University. The author of Rain Scald, she is the director of the Navajo Film Festival, a member of the Advisory Board for BYU’s Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, and a board member for Lightscatter Press. Atsitty is a PhD student in creative writing at Florida State University.
Praise
“(At) Wrist lifts and sways with loss, praise, gratitude, intimacy, love, and grief—all that makes us human—both earthly and divine—as a piercing echo song of the natural world. Atsitty sings, ‘The wind / can only lift so much with its song: / snow is a blessing; its color / amplifies silence, so you can hear / every crunch or offering of self.’ I gather strength as the collarbones, wrists, veins, ankles, and soles of feet of this human body hold me together as delicately and powerfully as the creeks, canyons, glacier stones, and tree bones. Here, I’m humbled by a great sense of oneness and endurance, now as in the past, when ‘we rushed like rain to meet / along the ridges of the Chuskas.’ Thank you, Tacey Atsitty, for this star choir of beauty.”
—Layli Long Soldier, author of Whereas
“A delirium of image and language. These poems are inviting and elegant and transformative, which then makes the whole reading experience pure poetic pleasure. You will find yourself returning to these poems again and again to relish and savor her love for humanity. This book is a blessing.”—Virgil Suárez, author of The Painted Bunting’s Last Molt and Amerikan Chernobyl
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—Virgil Suárez, author of The Painted Bunting’s Last Molt and Amerikan Chernobyl
“Atsitty’s favored form throughout (At) Wrist is the sonnet, whose centuries-old traditions she extends and refashions. Her experiments with the form—the ribbon-thin “Lace Sonnet,” a 13-line “Candy Dish Sonnet”—both praise and pattern themselves after decorative arts, revealing the often unappreciated labor they require. In lacemaking and poetry alike, Atsitty discovers fittingly intricate figures for the countless ways our lives overlap and intertwine.”
—Harriet, Poetry Foundation
“Atsitty consistently delivers surprises in sound and syntax, and across sensory, and sometimes sensual, imagery. . . . Atsitty is an early career poet to follow.”
—Literary Hub
“Highlights experiences of shared vulnerability and honesty and lessons. . . . Stories are created through experiences and emotional phases.”
—Navajo Times
Table of Contents
( )
A February Snow
Sonnet for My Wrist
Bird Dance
Round Our Wrists
Out of Star
Sang Over
Chafe
Apricot Lament
Hole through the Rock
Querido Apu
Lace Sonnet
Still Life Morrow
River Silt
The Night My Wrist Broke
Last Night, Bleeding
()
A Blood Letting
On Innocence
When It Was Time
Scaling the Black
It’s Hard to Write a Love Poem When
Candy Dish Sonnet
Into Rain
Of Ribbon
The Warbler
Night Portrait with Cannon Fire
Pollenback
Portrait of a Gray Room
) (
Lacing
Acknowledgments
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