Royals

"One finishes a poem feeling as though they have taken part in a singular event that can be returned and mined again and again without exhausting the kernel of mystery around which each poem swirls." —BOMB

Cedar Sigo's fourth collection restlessly enacts the pleasures of writing. With a mix of condensed, syllabic poems and longer serial pieces, and with many poems addressed to other poets, Sigo explores the romance of being a poet while also drawing on the color and symmetries of the visual arts of his Native American identity.

twin angels
at the impasse
stripping wire
out from
the earth

bolts of thunder pealed
from under the
falls

stones
thrown (from very high)
to form
a ziggurat
an hourglass
I almost forgot
to intone

Cedar Sigo was raised on the Suquamish Reservation in the Pacific Northwest and studied at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute. He is the author of eight books and pamphlets of poetry, including Royals, Language Arts, Stranger in Town, Expensive Magic, and two editions of Selected Writings.

Cedar Sigo was raised on the Suquamish Reservation in the Pacific Northwest and studied at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute. He is the author of eight books and pamphlets of poetry, including Language Arts (Wave Books, 2014), Stranger in Town (City Lights, 2010), Expensive Magic (House Press, 2008), and two editions of Selected Writings (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2003 and 2005). He is also the editor of There You Are, a collection of interviews with Joanne Kyger (Wave Books, 2017). He has taught workshops at St. Mary’s College, Naropa University, and University Press Books. He lives in San Francisco.