MARKINGS ON EARTH

When asked to facilitate Native participation in a community event, a Wood speaker quips, "Who ever heard of smoke signals in the forests?// ...I ride off to my ranch-style home./ Time to weave a basket, or something." As reverential of their natural surroundings as they are unimpressed by the white world's fumbling efforts at sensitivity, Wood's sharp-eyed witnesses are sometimes quick-tongued, sometimes sylvan-touched, inhabiting the "enflamed throat of August" and observing that "North is the country of reflected light." Whether recounting trauma, communal or private rituals or Monocan Indian history, Wood's voice is deliberate, certain of itself and resoundingly clear. (Oct. 25)