There has been a lack of critical attention toward Native American poetry to date. As editors Dean Rader and Janice Gould of Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry note in their introduction, only a handful of book-length texts are devoted entirely to native poetry, despite the burgeoning field of Native American literary criticism, and despite the extensive attention to Native American fiction, autobiography, and oral traditions. As Speak to Me Words shows, native poetry needs its own critical studies because the poets are developing a site of unique native discourse as well as a forum to continue the fight against prejudice and injustice. While native poetry often has a minimal presence at conferences and in college {105} classrooms, Speak to Me Words labors to fill this gap and lay the groundwork for subsequent critical attention to contemporary Native American poetry. In this way, it is a book of beginnings. It respects poetry's demand for astute close reading and honors the spirit that native poets invoke through their creative expression.