The Poetic Life of Wilma Mankiller

Although she was known mainly as the first woman principal chief of the Cherokee Nation during her lifetime, Wilma Mankiller was also a gifted poet in her own right. In Mankiller Poems, Pulley Press brings together pieces of Wilma Mankiller’s poetry, nineteen of which were found posthumously by Frances McCue and Greg Shaw with the permission of Mankiller’s husband. These poems reveal an untold layer of Mankiller’s life, in which she found it necessary to turn to poetry for a deeper understanding while making important leadership decisions.

Mankiller was born in Oklahoma and lived on her family’s allotment until she was eleven years old, when she was forced to move to San Francisco as part of a relocation effort by the federal government. Through her poetry, she visually expresses the trials of an imposed move. In “Leaving San Francisco” Mankiller personifies the city as a woman, describing it as “old” and “corrupt,” then going on to explain that if San Francisco is “on the way down” she is “not going with her.” After spending several decades in San Francisco—where she got involved with activism and became a college student and a mother—Mankiller decided to return to her people and her home.

Another one of her pieces, “Real People,” is one of three of Mankiller’s poems set to be republished in Cutbank, a Louisiana literary magazine. The poem starts:

In the time of the ancients
we called ourselves
Real People
After countless seasons of “civilization”
we remain
Real People

She uses the version of “civilization” that is spoken by the colonizers—or “the blue veined people”—and transposes it onto her people’s understanding of civilization as a form of oppression to be endured. Through her command of language, Mankiller asserts that her people, the “Real People,” hold the true narrative.

Mankiller was—additionally—an important feminist and Gloria Steinem’s best friend. In a poem titled, “I Want to Be Reincarnated as Gloria Steinem,” she expresses her desire to carry the same bliss and hope that her friend has in the fight towards freedom and equality for all people.

In a world that is overcome by hatred and injustice, Mankiller wrote from a place of love, finding  comfort in the natural world and her relationship with Charlie Soap. As a collected body of work, Mankiller’s poems tell an introspective story of a Native American woman’s search for identity through the joys and sorrows of life. 

Mankiller Poems is now available for purchase here.