My name is Pautri Gautuma and one of the things I love and admire about poetry but also fear about poetry is that it asks you to name deep truths.

It asks you to open up and implement and it asks you to take away shallow comforts and to let the truth of what you wish to say in pain or the truth of what you wish to hear in acknowledgement rest true and to live with it.

Lately, long soldiers poem, whereas my eyes land on the shoreline. Whereas my eyes land on the shoreline of the arrival of Europeans in North America opened a new chapter in the history of native peoples.

Because in others I hate the act of laughing when hurt injured or in cases of danger. That bitter hiding. My daughter picks up new habits from friends. She'd been running, tripped, slayed on knees and palms onto asphalt. They carried her into the kitchen. She just fell. She's bleeding.

Deep red streams down her arms and legs, trails on white tile. I looked at her face, a smile quivered her, a laugh, a nervous.

Doing as her friends do, she braved new behavior, feigned a grin. I couldn't name it, but I could spot it. Stop, my girl. If you're hurting, cry. Like that, she let it out, a flood from living room to bathroom. Then a soft water pour, I washed carefully, light, touch, clean, cotton to bandage.

I faced her, I reminded. In our home, in our family, we are ourselves. Real feelings, be true. Yet I'm serious when I say I laugh, reading the phrase, opened a new chapter.

I can't help my body, I shake the realization that it took this phrase to show my daughter's quiver isn't new, but a deep practice very old. She's watching me.

I was so struck by the way within which this poem takes legislation and takes official political documentation and engages with it in poetry.

So often poetry or the arts can be seen as peripheral to the real stuff of political life. And this poem is a profound poetic engagement with the quality of public language, which is ultimately what poetry is, and it is ultimately also what politics is, the question of the quality of public language being used.

It's a really long soldier responded to an apology and an epitopology that was given by the American president in 2009, Barack Obama. The title of this apology that came from the government is 35 words. It's a long title. Here it is.

It's a long history of official depredation and ill-conceived policies by the federal government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native peoples on behalf of the United States.

And it was an apology that wasn't read out and that didn't have any consultation or response from Native peoples and apology to Native peoples without really acknowledging them.

And it was a long story and a long story that was written in the book, which was all about, whereas this, whereas that, whereas that we apologize, and here's a disclaimer, you can't take us to court.

And she takes those sentences of the whereas, whereas whereas, and writes a poem for each. And in this poem, it is one of 20 poems that begin with whereas by Lily Long Soldier in this book, where she is taking very seriously the content and the language being used.

And criticizing them and finding corners of protest and lament and finding corners to say language needs to be better than this.

The structure of this poem is really fascinating because you open with a quote and a perspective where she says that she hates the act of laughing when hurt or injured or in danger.

And then we're dropped into a story story of her daughter being carried into the kitchen after falling. She's bleeding and she's trying to quiver out a smile to be brave.

And the speaker of the poem says not to. The speaker of the poem thinks, oh, my daughter has picked that up from her friends. And the speaker of the poem is saying, no, no, cry, you know, if you're hurt. And then it comes back to the policy.

And she realizes, my daughter didn't learn this from her friends. My daughter learned this from me. And I have learned this from the way that the arrival of Europeans in North America opened a new chapter in the history of Native peoples.

And she is beginning to recognize that it was in her and it's already been passed on to her daughter. And her daughter has this deep practice very old and is watching her.

So suddenly you hear this history being present in her daughter who she's comforting after having injured herself.

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