RAVEN FOREST


There’s a voice in the wind, I hear calling to me— Kwa Caw Kwa Caw.


I caw back and continue picking berries. High in the trees five ravens cock their heads to watch me.


I wander with the ravens farther into the woods, but always keeping the other berry pickers in sight, my aunties.


In the forest, thoughts are more than— “Oh, what a beautiful place.”


I stand alone in this forest, and something surrounds me like a warm blanket.


Yet, blows a cold breath at my back.


I don’t drift too far from the others, the elders’ tales are always in the back of my mind . . .


I could disappear like the others, before me—


An otter in the spirit world.


The Raven is a character in many Alaska Native stories. In this multiple-exposure photograph that Beaver created in 1992, Tlingit carver Nathan Jackson is peering out from the woods in his Raven regalia.


about the nature-centric origins of the short-form poetry. In addition, Hope said he appreciates that although Beaver has


“a Tlingit mind, an Indigenous mind and is of this land,” her poetry evokes the influ- ences of other cultures. “It’s not in the Tlingit language, it’s not


in Tlingit oratory, it’s not Tlingit story- telling,” said Hope. “It’s a very conscious, exact—at least as far as you can get in the English language—retention of the haiku tradition.” Hope, who met Beaver through the


late Tlingit regalia designer Clarissa Rizal, his former mother-in-law, said the poet’s multicultural sensibility and historical consciousness about her Alaska Native


14 WINTER 2022 AMERICAN INDIAN


culture places her among activists of dif- ferent ethnicities—including his father— who since the 1970s have been advancing Indigenous literature and the writings of contemporary Indigenous writers. Hope said the Native literary world needs peo- ple like Beaver who have a passion for “bringing people together.” This amalgamation of influences


extends to the artistic media Beaver has used to express herself. While Beaver’s poetry follows the format of haiku, the way she presents her works reveals her experimental nature. Beaver developed a love of creative writing, photography and illustration when she was in high school and has continued to nurture


those interests by taking classes and workshops. Her visual work has been influenced by Japanese filmmaker and painter Akira Kurosawa, photographers Diane Arbus and Duane Michals, as well as other creatives. Today, she is using still images and short videos to amplify her poetry. Some of her favorite portraits she has created have been of her own children, but she has also mixed scenes of landscapes with iconic art or charac- ters from Alaska Native stories. “I love working in layers of stuff,” said Beaver. Beaver’s artistry reaches across gen-


erations. Some of her other art forms include making beaded copper and stone jewelry. The beading she learned from


PHOTO BY DONNA BEAVER


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