Split the Crow

“The poems of Sarah Sousa’s Split the Crow employ archaeology as a means of giving voice not only to the land, but to long-gone peoples. We discover the objects that individuals were equipped with for their final journeys, as well as witnessing their tales. Sousa’s work picks up where conventional history has left off, giving voice to urgent testimonies. ‘The Lost People,’ states, ‘On the train coming east, / not knowing what else to do, boys sang / the death songs our warriors sang riding into battle,’ just one of many instances where Native American accounts find a ready home in Sousa’s poetry. Split the Crow is a collection of tremendous magnitude that calls upon the past as a way to reconsider our present moment.” —Mary Biddinger