Got Some River In Us

Got Some River in Us brings the American mythic landscape of the Delta-with its mighty rivers and wondrous mixture of peoples and cultures-to life. "Got Some River in Us takes on a number of extraordinary challenges to become its whole: the skill and understanding of ekphrasis as the poem converses with the art, the book-length poem itself, but also a work that braids science, nature, and social justice, in a bold yet controlled voice. It is the poetry of place and of witness in its best sense. Dafoe brings to mind Allison Hedge Coke, Crystal Williams, Martha Collins, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Sai Shōnagon, Barbara Kingsolver-writers who see the complexity of the world around us and render their visions and truth in words, as the poem carves its way through pages like the river it celebrates," wrote Georgia A. Popoff, author of Living with Haints and immediate past poet laureate for Onondaga County.

Unlike a collection of poems, Got Some River in Us is a single, as well as singular, long form poem in five parts, offering an integrated collage of Tate's interrelated art and Dafoe's words, an immersion in the pre-history and history of the rivers and delta; the art and culture of the region; the natural world and myths surrounding the Delta; as well as a visual and linguistic commentary on the faults and extraordinary gifts of the region and its peoples. New York State poet, author, and educator Nancy Avery Dafoe and Mississippi artist Jamie Tate worked together over the course of two years to bring this rich experience to readers. Dafoe and Tate are members of the National League of American Pen Women through which they met and discovered a mutual admiration, then a friendship, and then made the decision to create this unique project.