Bringing to a conclusion a writing grant received two years ago, local poet Vivian Prescott will be publishing a pair of works this summer.
“The newest book that’s coming out in July is a poetry chapbook,” she explained. “So it’s small, about 30 pages. It’s more a hybrid so it’s a little bit of prose poetry. It’s called Traveling With the Underground People.”
The subject matter focuses on the diaspora of the Sami people, a group indigenous to the northern parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden and nearby Russia. Though Alaska residents for about five generations, Prescott she has Sami roots through her father’s side of the family. Born and raised in Wrangell, her work explores this heritage and also relates them to the experience of her local roots.
She was surprised at some of the parallels she found during her research. “The Sami underwent assimilation practices under the Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish government similar to what Native Americans went through here,” she explained, which included boarding schools and restrictions on the use of their native language.
Some of the subject material is dark, focusing for instance on anthropological collections and the desecration of burial places. “So I have poems about skull studies of the Sami,” Prescott revealed.
Both Underground People and another forthcoming chapbook, Our Tents are Small Volcanoes, are drawn from the same manuscript, which Prescott in 2015 received a $18,000 grant to produce from the Rasmuson Foundation.
“That one is similar,” she said of the second. In it, her poetry ties more into the Sami language, exploring its many iterations for “snow,” for which they have at least 180 different words. These can be very specific, describing the consistency, depth or quality of it.
“To survive in the Arctic I think they need to have to know exactly the conditions of snow for reindeer herding, hunting in winter. Things like that,” she explained.
Like the first work, Small Volcanoes also draws parallels between Prescott’s Sami past and her present. “I wrote poetry to the Sami dictionary. So I kind of combined the idea of climate change and what I was seeing here, and what I was learning about Sami culture.”
The manuscript took a year to work on, and having a grant-funded project was a departure from past projects for Prescott. Rasmuson’s Individual Artist Awards were first launched in December 2003, as a multi-year initiative to make a significant investment into the state’s various arts and cultural resources. The purpose of the awards is to allow artists to seek a variety of creative opportunities, including providing them with the time necessary to focus on creative work.
“Having that financial motivation was good, because someone believed in me,” Prescott recounted. “It was fun to sit at a desk and think ‘I’m getting paid to write poetry.’”
Scheduling the hours could be a bit of a challenge though she said. “Every day I set a schedule where in the mornings I would write, which is hard to do when you live a subsistence life because you’re out fishing and things like that. So I would take my notebook with me.”
Traveling With the Underground People is being published by Finishing Line Press, out of Kentucky. It will be available to ship July 14, and can be preordered at the publisher’s website.
Our Tents are Small Volcanoes is being produced by QuillsEdge Press, and is also available to preorder. The work was selected for publication after winning the publication’s Editor’s Choice award for 2015-16.
Already a published author and poet, writing has long been an outlet for Prescott’s expressions. “By the eighth grade I was known for being a poet, and was paid $5 and $10 a poem, writing love poems for my friends that wanted a poem for their boyfriend or girlfriend,” she recalled. On reflection she added, “I get paid less per poem now.”
She is starting a group for writers and artists to do collaborative work as well, called the Flying Islands Writers and Artists Group. In its infancy, it will meet twice a month, and be a place for writers, painters, musicians and other artists to converse and challenge each other to produce new works. Those interested in participating can get in contact with Prescott at doctorviv@hotmail.com.
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