Marie Tozier
Marie Tozier (Inupiaq)
Marie Tozier is an Inupiaq poet who lives in Anchorage with her husband, seven children, and three huskies. She is an instructor at the University of Alaska and has taught sewing, quilting, knitting and qiviut processing, and writing classes. During her low-residency MFA at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, Tozier focused on identity in poetry. As a staff member at UAF, she took part in the Robert Wood Johnson Global Solutions Partnership, which allowed Tozier to visit Aotearoa (New Zealand) and learn about Māori education and culture. A fun fact about Marie was that she appeared on an episode of the U.S. version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? in October 2000. She was the first Alaskan contestant to make it past the Fastest Finger Question and to play in the “hot seat."
Marie Tozier’s work has been published in Yellow Medicine Review and Cirque and she has just released her latest collection of poems in Open the Dark. Marie’s poetry beautifully captures the spirit and sights of her home in Alaska and her Inupiaq community. Several animals from her homeland make an appearance from the king crag, gulls, and hunting seals. Through her words she paints gentle memories of her mother in the presence of her belongings, simple but sweet reminders in a platter and a scraper. And lastly, there is the beauty of everyday occurrences, like making donuts with her husband, alongside memories of those who “began to disappear.”
Please enjoy these hand-picked excerpts from Open the Dark by Marie Tozier (Red Hen Press 2020). Reprinted with permission from the publisher.
Grandmother’s Bible
Grandmother had a King James Bible. In its front pages, she had written Each of our names and birthdates.
She ran her hand
Down the list of deaths and showed me Where to find our Eskimo names.
The list, in Iñupiaq, of who we were named After. Eskimo names given
To remember
Dear friends, siblings lost too young, esteemed Elders. There is no why.
Only who.
From A Mother’s Tale
I am covered in oil. Smell like a balm of heaven, a promise unbroken. My origin the land, the river, the raven.
Hands to heal the broken star, the upended heart boy. Warmth. Blood. Pulse. Electric body.
Sediment to filter the noise of life
And all its buzz,
Quiet the roots that tug at my hair, my feet. Connection, click, click, clack on the thick ice.
I gather myself and swim the wide ocean. I know for whom I return.
Yellow the sun. Yellow the daisy.
Aerosol-fine mist released from the dust of plant bones as I walk the forest Looking, searching for you.
Rose hips and pollination. Bee lover….
Seasons
Seasons
Roll into each other
Spring’s bud
Turns summer’s leaf,
Ripe berries Wait on the bush Fall to winter.
In between
A long pause, While the moon Turns full—
