A vision of identity at the intersection of language, history, and family

“This essential and captivating debut will draw readers into intersections of history, memory, exile, and return. Abigail Chabitnoy’s poems are tender and direct—they restore worlds, mend fragmented histories by revealing our human longing for land and for memories embraced in language.”
—Sherwin Bitsui, author of Shapeshift

 

In How to Dress a Fish, poet Abigail Chabitnoy, of Unangan and Sugpiaq descent, addresses the lives disrupted by the Indian boarding school policy of the US government. She pays particular attention to the life story of her great-grandfather, who was taken from Alaska to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. In uncovering her own family records, Chabitnoy finds that reconnection through blood and paper does not restore the personal relationships that had already been severed.

Abigail Chabitnoy is a member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak, Alaska. Her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Nat. Brut, Red Ink, and Mud City.

December 11, 2018
152 pp., 6 x 9”
Paper, $14.95 978-0-8195-7849-5
Unjacketed Cloth, $30.00 978-0-8195-7848-8