The Cherokee Lottery: A Sequence of Poems

by William Jay Smith

For the first time in poetic form, The Cherokee Lottery treats one of the greatest tragedies in American history, the forced removal of the Southern Indian tribes east of the Mississippi. When gold was discovered on Cherokee land in northern Georgia in 1828, the U.S. Government passed the Removal Act, and 18,000 Cherokees, along with other southern tribes--Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks--were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma territory. Herded...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1880684667
• ISBN13: 9781880684665
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Curbstone Press
• Length: 72 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.4" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Cherokee Lottery is full of pieces of very interesting, sometimes obscure history, served poetically

I ordered this book “accidentally,” thinking I might learn something about the loss of my Cherokee great great great grandparents’ Georgia land in the Cherokee Nation, taken from them by the Government and put in the land lottery. At first glance disappointed, I stayed inside this wonderful book to read every word. An amazing experience and a truly lucky find.

REVIEW QUOTES

"THE CHEROKEE LOTTERY [is] a magnificent sequence that celebrates the Indians of the famous Trail of Tears....This is as fine in its way as similar poems by Robert Penn Warren, and it is an appropriate poem to have been written by a former Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress." --World Literature Today"Smith accomplishes a remarkable poetry of fact and documentation..." --Publishers Weekly"The richness of these poems makes the multi-layered task of memory a luxurious task." --Real Change"William Jay Smith has been one of our best poets for more than sixty years, and THE CHEROKEE LOTTERY is his masterwork: taut, harrowing, eloquent, and profoundly memorable." --Harold Bloom

A exceptional book of poetry ...

William Jay Smith was unknown to me as a poet or author before I picked this book up in a local library. "Cherokee Lottery" is an exceptional and refreshing book of poetry, a real pleasure to read. There is nothing tedious and overwrought here. The book begins with an invocation, and obviously the muse served the writer well. Each poem presents a chapter of historical fact and allows the reader to digest it without dipping into excessive negative pathos. The reader is brought to a new awareness of just what the plight of the southeastern Indians was. William Jay Smith has a great feel for language and how it sounds. In many ways I think this is the book of poetry I have been waiting to read for years. Now I want to read everything else he has written.

Impressive, memorable poetry.

The impressive and memorable poetry comprising The Cherokee Lottery: A Sequence Of Poems explores the forced removal of the Southern Indian tribes east of the Mississippi when gold was discovered on Cherokee land in northern Georgia in 1828. Journey to the Interior: He has gone into the forest,/to the wooded mind in wrath;/he will follow out the nettles/and the bindweed path.//He is torn by tangled roots,/he is trapped by mildewed air;/he will feed on alder shoots/and on fungi: in despair//he will pursue each dry creek-bed,/each hot white gully's rough raw stone/till heaven opens overhead/a vast jawbone//and trees around grow toothpick-thin/and a deepening dustcloud swirls about/and every road leads on within/and none leads out.

Impressive, memorable collection.

The impressive and memorable poetry comprising The Cherokee Lottery explores the forced removal of the Southern Indian tribes east of the Mississippi when gold was discovered on Cherokee land in northern Georgia in 1828. Journey to the Interior: He has gone into the forest,/to the wooded mind in wrath;/he will follow out the nettles/and the bindweed path.//He is torn by tangled roots,/he is trapped by mildewed air;/he will feed on alder shoots/and on fungi: in despair//he will pursue each dry creek-bed,/each hot white gully's rough raw stone/till heaven opens overhead/a vast jawbone//and trees around grow toothpick-thin/and a deepening dustcloud swirls about/and every road leads on within/and none leads out.