Europeans almost succeeded in wiping out indigenous Americans, then they made a concerted effort to wipe out their hundreds of languages and cultures. Since the poetry of indigenous Americans typically was part of an oral tradition, we lost most of a tribe's poetry each time we lost a tribal language. These lost legacies, along with assimilation and pressure to assimilate, slowed the emergence of indigenous poets in the United States.
The first widely celebrated indigenous American poet was William Jay Smith (1918-2015), a brilliant and charming Rhodes Scholar who served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1968-1970. Smith primarily wrote and translated highly polished—and often funny—formal verse for both adults and children. Many of his books do not address his heritage, but his most profound impact on our culture with his 2000 book The Cherokee Lottery: A Sequence of Poems, which helped to bring the horror of “The Trail of Tears” into our national consciousness.
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