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Listening to Jordan Abel read is an ideal way to grasp what he is doing with language in this award-winning poetry book. I had been impressed when I heard him perform his work previously, but on the printed page I was baffled initially. It‘s the supplementary material included, the sentences with the word injun pulled from 91 public domain novels, and then rereading the collage poems several times, that revealed to me their brilliance. #Indigenous

Words in these collage poems become increasingly fractured as the book progresses. It took me awhile to realize that Jordan Abel‘s deconstruction is a way to decolonize literature.

It‘s the supplementary material included at the back of this poetry collection that helped me understand Jordan Abel‘s work. Above is one of the pages that show words within the context of sentences pulled from western novels.

This epigraph by Mark Twain is apt for at least two reasons: this poetry collection has the topic of stolen land at its heart; and the way the text is created. Jordan Abel explains his process, how he used CTRL+F to find the word injun in 91 public domain western novels and then used the sentences he extracted to create this book.

Excited to see the final product of this fascinating process. #currentlyreading #poetry

Thanks to @bookriot for this recommendation. Injun is found poetry comprised entirely of lines from old, public domain western novels that use the word "injun". It made me cringe but in the sense that it was fantastic and the subject is brutal. Features all sorts of source notes and info about the process as well.

I read this collection over the past few days. I don't think I can adequately rate it, so I'm only marked it as read. I struggled a bit with the collection. While I understand it from the Indigenous and the deconstructing colonialism point-of-view, I don't necessarily see it as poetry. I admire Abel's goal and process, but I personally struggled with the presentation.