.Writers.on.Writing.
Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.
W.o.W. #40
Rebecca Pelky
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why?
My grandmother, Mable Moon, who died before I was born, and who everyone says I most resemble, or maybe my great-grandfather, William Moon, who survived the Carlisle Indian Boarding School. Or maybe a grandmother from even further back, before boarding schools and missionaries stripped away so much of our traditional culture.
What does your inner writing voice tell you?
Lately it reminds me that I’m not only writing for myself, but also for my ancestors, who maybe didn’t have the chance to speak out like I do.
Describe an early experience where you learned that language has power.
When I was in Junior High (middle school in today’s lexicon), a (white, male) history teacher told my mom that I would never amount to anything because I came from a “broken home.” Those words did have power, but not in the way he might have expected. They only made me push harder to prove him wrong.
Rebecca Pelky holds a PhD from the University of Missouri, an MFA from Northern Michigan University, and is an assistant professor of Film Studies at Clarkson University. She is a member of the Brothertown Indian Nation of Wisconsin and a native of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Through a Red Place, her second poetry collection and winner of the 2021 Perugia Press Prize, was released in September 2021. Her first book, Horizon of the Dog Woman, was published by Saint Julian Press in 2020. Rebecca was one of Yellow Arrow’s ANFRACTUOUS poets with her incredible piece “Nuhpuhk’hqash Qushki Qipit (Braids)” and guest editor of Yellow Arrow Journal’s Vol. VII, No. 1 UpSpring.
Rebecca participated in “An Exploration of Belonging: The Anfractuous Reading” last year. You can hear her read her poem below and find the reading in its entirety on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel.
You can also see Rebecca host the “Moments in Time: An UpSpring Reading” on YouTube. To learn more about Rebecca, you can find her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, or visit rebeccapelky.com.