“Has there ever been a lovelier word for medicine—indeed, a lovelier medicine—than rosehip? That’s what I thought as I read and was riveted by Tyler Dettloff’s Belly-up Rosehip, a book that loves thorns as much as bloom and sings of stink as beautifully as sweetgrass. When he writes of licking a fishing lure’s hook, or asking the pine needles “to have mercy on my tongue,” Dettloff describes caring for a place so much that you want your mouth where its mouths are, your tongue against its sharpest leaves. No wonder the wilderness in these poems is delirious. Sensual and serious and sometimes necessarily sad, this book charts an intimacy with a Northern Michigan landscape peopled by namegos (lake trout), migizi (bald eagle), and “whips of red willow buds” as well as human mothers, fathers, and lovers. “This is the place I was telling you,” the poet says, inviting us to listen to what the place tells him as he becomes the man the place makes him.”
~ Dr. Cecily Parks
Awards/Nominations:
“Thousands of Frogs Croaking Purple” was nominated by Jelly Bucket for 2020 Pushcart Prize
“Rapids” was a finalist in the Cream City Review 2019 Summer Prize in Poetry
Poetry Publications:
Swimming with Elephants Publications
Belly-up Rosehip: a Tongue Blue with Mud Songs (poetry chapbook)
The Rumpus, Presence Series: The Heartspeak of Indigenous Poets, 2019
“Nipan Mishkwi [Lung Blood]”
Jelly Bucket, Issue 9
“Dynamite Honey,”
“Thousands of Frogs Croaking Purple”
“Cranes Too Early, Trout Too Late”
“Mouthwash”
“Surefooted Spring-Fed Salt Lick”
River Heron Review, Issue 2.1
“Metis Breakfast”
Heartwood Literary Magazine, Issue 5
“Daffodil Yawp”
Santa Ana River Review, Fall 2019 Issue
“Metis Breakfast”
Cutthroat Journal of the Arts, Issue 24
“Juncos and Buntings”
“Cleaning Trout”
“To Keep Away Crows Feet”
Creative Nonfiction Publications:
Crabfat Magazine, Best of Year Four Issue
“I Pick Medicine: Nibaashkwakibidoon Mashkiki”
Voice on the Water: Great Lakes Native America Now (anthology)
“Sitting, Standing, Restless”
Tyler Dettloff 