April 9, 2009

Cathy Rexford & dg okpik

Cathy Tagnak Rexford at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art

I am a cedar mask, devouring my own tongue,
I close the space between my teeth with permafrost.
From this I will heave forth the Brooks Range,
leech my ears into the shape of whale flukes,
mount my face to the white wall
of a gallery.

~

dg nanouk okpik at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art

In realms less traveled with bow heads,
I will settle down to give you this tight bundle of charts
and maps to find me not in unnatural shapes
but in bear grease, in your bowhead counting,
along the sea, in body, in Eucharist, in a seal effigy.

~

~

Tonja Woelber performing a prelude
from Dan Beachy-Quick's A Whaler's Dictionary


Ossie Kairairuak

Thanks to those who enabled Still North #1:

Chelsea Bailey, Camille Conte, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Julie Decker,
Bill Hess, International Gallery of Contemporary Art,
Ossie Kairairuak, Mickey Kenny, Jamie Lang, Susanna Mishler,
Moose's Tooth Brewing Company, Clarke Pelz, Michele Suchland,
Lila Vogt and the Alaska Poetry League, Tonja Woelber

And especially: thank you, Cathy Tagnak Rexford & dg nanouk okpik.

click to enlarge

coming soon • April 9 • coming soon


STILL NORTH
READING AND PERFORMANCE SERIES
commences

with an evening of live poetry by
Cathy Tagnak Rexford
and dg nanouk okpik

Thursday April 9th • 7:30 pm
at the INTERNATIONAL GALLERY OF CONTEMPORARY ART

427 D Street • Anchorage AK

Cathy Tagnak Rexford is Inupiaq, French-German, English and Dutch. Most of Rexford’s work is inspired by the unique view of the Indigenous peoples of Northern Alaska. She has worked extensively in Native education and language efforts as researcher, curriculum developer and graphic designer. Rexford has also worked on contemporary Native theater and film projects as an actor, producer and writer. She holds a BA from the Evergreen State College in Native American Studies and a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Creative Writing. Her work has appeared in Crosscurrents North: Alaskans on the Environment, Oregon Literary Review, Scrimshaw, Fish Head Soup, and others.

~

dg nanouk okpik is an Alaskan Native, Inupiat-Inuit from Anchorage, Alaska. Her family resides in Barrow, Alaska. Okpik earned an AFA in 2004 and a BFA in Creative Writing with honors in 2005 at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2003, she received the Truman Capote Literary Trust Award. Okpik works as a counselor at Santa Fe Indian Boarding School and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Stonecoast College, University of Southern Maine in Portland. Her work has appeared in Red Ink, Washington Square, Ahani: Indigenous American Poets Anthology, and others.

~

Alaska Natives dg nanouk okpik and Cathy Tagnak Rexford will launch their new book, Effigies: An Anthology of New Indigenous Writing, Pacific Rim, 2009, edited by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke and published by Salt Publishing and released as part of their series Earthworks: Native American Writings. Effigies compiles four chapbooks by four exceptional emerging poets: Alaska Natives dg nanouk okpik and Cathy Tagnak Rexford; and Native Hawaiians Brandy Nalani McDougall and Mahealani Perez-Wendt. Their Pacific Rim relationship invited the opportunity to publish their four chapbooks in one collected volume. Released in Australia and the United Kingdom in February 2009, Effigies will launch in the United States in April.

Rexford and okpik's book launch reading also launches Alaska's newest forum for literary and performance art, Still North Reading & Performance Series, curated by Jeremy Pataky.

Still North is supported, in part, by the Alaska Poetry League, the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, and the Moose's Tooth Brewing Company.