New Titles
In Order That Justice May Be Done: The Legal Struggle of the Turtle Mountain Band of Pembina Chippewa, 1795-1905
Tribal lands in tribal hands restrained the pursuit of profit. When the cultural identity of the Turtle Mountain Band of Pembina Chippewa was challenged by European Americans—who conceived of progress in terms of cultivated farmland—a tribal-federal conundrum occurred. Historian John M. Shaw untangles the culturally and legally contested concepts of land and its uses and ownership, providing a dynamic legal genesis of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa and their intentional action for change. Shaw presents a crucial analysis of federal policy and Native American resistance.
“Shaw systematically informs the reader of historical context and lays out the complex cultural influences—the nucleus of an emerging nation—of the Pembina Chippewa, providing unique insights into historical, legal, and political struggles. An overarching theme is the contrast and comparison of Indigenous and Western worldviews relative to international diplomacy. Shaw’s laser focus presents a critical and authentic analysis of social, economic, political, and cultural events that enveloped the Pembina Band of Chippewa and the United States of America.”—Les LaFountain, Tribal Educator and Historian; former Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Tribal Council Representative; former Legislative Assistant to the United States Senate Indian Affairs Committee
“In Order That Justice May Be Done is an excellent history of the struggle experienced by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa to gain recognition as a tribe and to gain control of their homeland. The documented efforts of Chief Little Shell and Attorney John Bottineau deserve to be recognized and understood.”—Carol A. Davis, Senior Associate Tribal Nations Research Group; Turtle Mountain Community College Co-founder and Second Interim/Acting TMCC President
LCCN: 2022951183
ISBN: 978-1-946163-56-1
6" x 9"
440 pp., paperback
black & white photos and maps
bibliography and index
Tribal-Federal Relations | History 19th Century | Indian Reservations—Law and Legislation
About the Author: John M. Shaw grew up where George Washington led the Continental Army across the Delaware River and surprised the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, on Christmas day, 1776. One of John's earliest childhood memories recalls his parents bundling him up on Christmas mornings to watch the annual reenactment. This tradition sparked his lifelong interest and passion for history, culmininating in an MA in American Indian Studies and a PhD in History, both from The University of Arizona.
In graduate school, a colleague informed John about a compelling microfilm of an eloquent prayer, address, and legal brief on behalf of the Turtle Mountain Band of Pembina Chippewa. Compiled by Métis tribal citizen and attorney John B. Bottineau, these inspiring documents provided a unique Indigenous perspective on the injustices of federal Indian policy. The tribe's legal struggle for land, sovereignty, and justice derived from the power to narrate their own side of the story through articulate chiefs and delegations, confirming that North Dakota's most populace Indigenous community remain a powerful people with a compelling history.
John contributed multiple entries to Making it in America: A Sourcebook on Eminent Ethnic Americans (2000) and The Encyclopedia of United States-American Indian Policy, Relations, and Law (2008), as well as several book reviews for UCLA's American Indian Culture and Research Journal and the New Mexico Historical Review. He has taught Native American and U.S. History courses for the departments of American Indian Studies, American Multicultural Studies, and History at The University of Arizona (1996–2003), Minnesota State University Moorhead (2004–2005), and Portland (Oregon) Community College (2005–present).
Gratitude with Dogs under Stars
Gratitude with Dogs under Starsfeatures selections from Debra Marquart’s three collections of lyric poetry (Small Buried Things, New Rivers Press 2015; From Sweetness, Pearl Editions 2001; and Everything’s a Verb, New Rivers Press 1995) and adds twenty-one new poems to round out the experience. Beginning with the new poems, the collection travels back through Marquart’s illustrious career. Long-time fans and newcomers alike can track the trajectory of this poet laureate’s poetic life thus far—the quiet serenity of walking dogs under a starry sky, the horrors of fracking, the beginnings of a tender relationship at a firing range, reflecting on the follies of a youthful life lived carefree.
Debra Marquart is Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University, as well as the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA Program at University of Southern Maine. Marquart serves as Iowa’s Poet Laureate and the Senior Editor of Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment. The author of seven books—including the memoirs The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere (Counterpoint 2007) and The Night We Landed on the Moon (North Dakota State University Press 2021)—Marquart has been featured on NPR and the BBC and has received over 50 grants and awards including an NEA Fellowship, a PEN USA Award, a New York Times Editors’ Choice commendation, and Elle Magazine’s Elle Lettres Award. In 2021, Marquart was awarded a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. For more information: debramarquart.com
Paperback, 278 pp
BISAC:
- POE024000 Poetry / Women Authors
- POE023040 Poetry / Subjects & Themes / Places
- POE023050 Poetry / Subjects & Themes / Family
- POE005010 Poetry / American / General
Fifteenth Commandment, The
It is the summer of 1965, and seventeen-year-old Nick Baarda is under pressure from his religious sect to conform to its rigid rules of behavior, including prohibitions on “worldly” activities like dancing and going to movies. On the other hand, Nick and his best friends are determined to enjoy modern life to the fullest, and they devise their own Commandment to give themselves free rein. They also plan to leave town the following year when they graduate from their parochial high school. When a new minister arrives, he makes it clear that he intends to keep the boys firmly under his thumb, and this sets in motion an extended contest of wills. Complicating things is the pastor’s daughter, who becomes Nick’s intellectual soulmate while not reciprocating his romantic overtures. The result for Nick is a roller coaster of infatuation and frustration, while he and the other boys share raucous adventures and deal with relationships, conflict, and calamity. Through it all, Nick wrestles with the quirks and hypocrisy he sees in his religion, and as graduation nears, he is forced to decide whether he will stay or break free.
Forgotten Frequencies
THE FIRST FORTY CUSTOMERS TO ORDER THIS TITLE FROM OUR ONLINE STORE WILL RECEIVE AN AUTOGRAPHED, LETTERPRESS PRINTED CARD FEATURING THE POEM "DECEMBER" FROM THIS COLLECTION.
Winner of the 2023 Poetry of the Plains & Prairies (POPP) Award
Volume 8 of the POPP Award Series
From the author:
I began writing Forgotten Frequencies while working as a country radio broadcaster in my hometown of Montevideo, Minnesota. During this time, I began to conceive of the poetic imagination as a kind of underground radio station of the soul, hosted by the muses. When I am lucky enough to catch the signal, I hear hymns and folk songs and sonnets, sounds of ancient glacial rivers, messages from fields, and voices from this region’s past. This book is a record of my attempts to transcribe this staticky inner music.
Brendan Stermer is a poet from Montevideo, Minnesota. His work is influenced by the rich literary and artistic tradition of the Upper Midwest. He is also the host and producer of Interesting People Reading Poetry, a podcast where artists and luminaries read a favorite poem and share what it means t them. He currently lives in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, and works as a writer exploring rural health issues across the country.
ISBN: 978-1-946163-62-2
Page count: 40
Picture Count: 2
Paperback, stitched
Publication Date: December 12, 2023
Seasoned
It seems that everyday life is dotted with moments that one wants to remember and share. When the circumstances and situations of my life provide me such moments, I try to make notes or a rough draft of a poem as soon as possible. Such events might be coffee with a friend, a walk around a park, a weekend camping trip, cleaning the house, a family celebration, or vacation travel. Sometimes I read, hear, overhear, or glimpse similar events of other people. In those cases, I imagine the cause or result of a situation of which I don’t have actual knowledge. After a period of informal meditation (usually days or weeks, but sometimes years) I revise the draft into a poem to share my experience, insight, discovery, or surprise. My lifelong goal as a writer is to have my readers, at least for a moment, perceive something as closely as possible to the way I perceived it. This collection of my recent work features the perceptions of a post-retirement guy paying attention to the current events of his life and times, and often commenting on his discoveries of how he and the world have changed through the seasons of the seventy-some years of his existence.
Available early December 2023
David R. Solheim, the North Dakota Statehood Centennial Poet, has published writing in more than two dozen periodicals and had work in several anthologies. He wrote two poetry chapbooks published by Dacotah Territory. His four previous books of poetry and a literary travelog related to Thoreau’s 1861 visit to Minnesota are available via buffalocommonspress.com. Solheim is an English Professor Emeritus of Dickinson State University, where he taught for almost 30 years, and, thanks to the late Larry Woiwode, an Emeritus Associate Poet Laureate of North Dakota. He holds degrees in English and creative writing from Gustavus Adolphus College, Stanford University, and the University of Denver. Early in his career, he was a temporary faculty member at NDSU and conducted numerous programs for the North Dakota Humanities Council (now Humanities North Dakota) and the ND Council on the Arts. After residing in Minnesota for the last 10 years, he and his wife, Dr. Barbara Laman, also an Emeritus English Professor of DSU, have resettled near family members in the Portland, Oregon, area. Between them, Dave and Barbara have five adult children and seven grandchildren.
ISBN: 978-1-946163-52-3
Page Count: 78
Paperback
Publication Year: 2023