Native Voices

NATIVE VOICES at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, a literary event, will be held November 18 from 7-8:30 pm in the auditorium at SebArts and will feature Native poetry from Lucille Lang Day, Dave Holt, Linda Noel, Kurt Schweigman and a panel discussion offering an indigenous perspective on the environment, followed by a discussion with the audience, drumming and more.

Panelists, "Indigenous Perspectives on the Environment":

• Olivia Dancel (Comanche/Yaqui) is an artist whose work reflects who she is as a Native American woman with deep connections to the natural world and her cultural traditions.

• Dr. Brenda Flyswithhawks (Tsalági Eastern Cherokee) is an environmental activist, professor of psychology at Santa Rosa Junior College, and traditional dancer, singer, drummer, and storyteller.

• Rose Hammock (Pomo and Wailacki) is a Native American leader, activist, and educator. She dances with her community and serves as a tutor and mentor for Native American youth.

Poetry reading by contributors to Red Indian Road West: Native American Poetry from California (Scarlet Tanager Books, 2016).

• Lucille Lang Day (Wampanoag) is the author of eleven poetry collections and chapbooks, most recently Birds of San Pancho and Other Poems of Place, and a coeditor of Red Indian Road West: Native American Poetry from California.

• Dave Holt (Ojibwe), originally from Canada, is a musician and songwriter in addition to being a poet whose book Voyages to Ancestral Islands received an Artists Embassy International Literary/Cultural Arts Award.

• Linda Noel (Koyoonk’auwi), former Poet Laureate of Ukiah, has work in Joy Harjo’s When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through (2020) and many other anthologies.

• Kurt Schweigman (Oglala Lakota), coeditor of Red Indian Road West: Native American Poetry from California, has been a featured poet at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival and was the first spoken-word poet to receive an Archibald Bush Foundation individual artist fellowship.