Laura Da’ and Martha Silano, Poetry

Instruments of the True Measure charts the coordinates and intersections of land, history, and culture. Surveying and geography underpin the collection, but even as Da’ investigates these signifiers of measurement, she pushes the reader to interrogate their function within the stark atrocities of American history.

A gravity assist is when a spacecraft uses the gravitational force of an object (usually a planet) to alter its speed or trajectory. In Gravity Assist, Silano explores this concept metaphorically, focusing on the forces that not only set a body in motion but cause it to waiver or soar.

Laura Da’ is a lifetime resident of the Pacific Northwest, Da’ studied creative writing at the University of Washington and The Institute of American Indian Arts. Da’ is Eastern Shawnee. Her first book, Tributaries, won the 2016 American Book Award.

Martha Silano’s poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Paris Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at Bellevue College.