Today, the day after Thanksgiving, is Native American Heritage Day -- a November event that was proclaimed in 2009 by President Obama and is part of Native American Indian Heritage Month (established in 1990 by President Bush.) The disregard with which native Americans have been treated over many years has created huge wounds that will take long to heal. Both mathematics and poetry can help to support justice and truth! At present, the US Poet Laureate is Joy Harjo of the Muskogee Nation -- and Harjo is active in using the educational and healing powers of poetry. Here is a link to some lines from Harjo's "Becoming Seventy" -- posted in this blog back in 2019.
The website Poets.org helps us to celebrate Native American Heritage Month with a collection of poetic resources found at this link. One of the poems offered -- which makes effective use of numbers in describing difficult situations -- is "Housing Conditions of One Hundred Fifty Chippewa Families" by Kimberly Blaeser. I offer a few lines of that poem below -- followed by a link to the entire poem.
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