Juneau-based poet Ishmael Hope will celebrate the release of his latest collection of poetry this evening at Kindred Post.
The book release party for Hope’s second book of poetry, “Rock Piles Along the Eddy,” begins at 6:30 p.m. at the gift shop and post office, 145 S. Franklin St.
Hope will read excerpts from the book. Local authors Ernestine Hayes and Christy NaMee Eriksen will also read some of their work.
The event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for sale.
Hope is a Tlingit and Inupiaq poet, storyteller and scholar. He is currently in a low-residency Master of Fine Arts program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Sante Fe, New Mexico.
“Rock Piles Along the Eddy” mulls indigenous thought, raising a family, and relationships with ancestors and elders.
Spurred on by recent experiences of loss, Hope said the work came in a creative outburst he’s experienced only once before, when writing his first book of poetry “Courtesans of Flounder Hill.”
“Some of it has been percolating for a while, but a lot of it has just come in response to this desire I have to take the chance while I can,” Hope said by phone Tuesday, “who knows what’s in store tomorrow.”
