American Indian Studies is pleased to share that award-winning author Jenny L. Davis (Chickasaw) has released her second poetry collection, Extant. In this new work, Davis confronts the enduring tendency to associate Native peoples with the distant past and to describe Native bodies, cultures, and languages through the language of disappearance. Through blackout poems, occasional poems, and free verse, Extant rewrites those narratives and centers Native presence, survival, and life in the present.
Drawing on sources as varied as online question forums, scientific studies, kitschy décor, and the everyday reflections of an Indigiqueer Native woman, Extant offers a powerful meditation on Indigenous existence within a world shaped by colonial violence. At the same time, the collection affirms the vitality and complexity of Native life, staging moments of survival and connection in a living world of stars, cicadas, earthworms, and moss.