YUNI DAI / NEXTGENRADIO

Claire Neel speaks with dg okpik, a Lannan Family Foundation Fellow who is currently working as a poet and mentor at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her poetry is heavily influenced by her childhood in Alaska and her identity as an Inuit woman. She hopes that her work will help bring Alaska to the outside world and inspire others to protect its wilds from the threat of climate change. In addition to writing and publishing poems, she also works with Project Identity to introduce at-risk students to the arts.

Making sense of the world through the written word

by | Nov 18, 2022

Listen to the Story

by Claire Neel | Next Generation Radio, Native American Journalists Association | November 2022

Click here for audio transcript

[SPEAKER NAME: DG NANOUK OKPIK]

 

[I enjoy the fantastical and the impossible and the beautiful and the ugly. And I like to be able to pen it on the page and make it alive. 

 

Hi. My name is dg nanouk okpik. I’m Inupiaq Inuit, and I’m from Point Barrow, Alaska. I grew up in Alaska in the sixties and seventies, eighties and nineties. We were able to be around the ocean, rivers, lakes and brooks. You know, fishing and hunting and living off the land. 

 

I think I started writing when I was 12 and my journals go back to that age. I came to know that my, my, the way I lived and my family, the way we were, was very different from a lot of folks at that time period in Alaska. And that world to me was on the written page.

 

My professor friend of mine, he’s the one who influenced me to become the writer that I am. I was cutting his hair and he picked my brain every time he’d come in and he’d want to know a different story every time. And what I would do is write it down and give it to him. And he collected these stories for me, unbeknownst to me. And he showed ‘em to me one time. He said, you know, you should compile these and make a book.

 

And it was then that I felt empowered, that I could do this and that I could have a story to share with the world that that no one else would have. So I just kept writing and writing, becoming better and better.

 

I never write on the computer first. I’m always handwriting with pencil. I have pages and pages and boxes and boxes of writing just on white paper with no lines, you know. On my pages there’ll be clusters of writing not in linear form, but clusters. And I’ll have definitions of words and the spelling of words and different words that mean the same, you know, synonyms, antonyms. 

And it puts together a collage for me. And that’s how I’m able to bring together the image and the text into the writing as a poet.

 

I work with at-risk youth, kids in the public schools. I never think of myself as an educator because I always just say I’m an artist. I’m not a teacher, I’m not a professor because we only share what we know. We share the good things. And those things come to me as a student of life and not so much as a teacher of life.

 

I think I’m most proud to share my culture and my heritage in that sense, that it’s still alive and still well. 

We’ve been here for 10,000 years. So another 10,000 is just halfway point. Like my life.

 

People say that we’re writing the same poem all our lives. And I try not to romanticize things. I try to keep them as stark and naked as possible.

 

This is Whiteout Polar Bears

 

Dead on – in the night sky, or stuck in the deep web, bear scars exist. Name the bone piles on the marsh heaving like the Chukchi sea-pure-ice-white and Arctic air rising. Fifty miles of open water floating. I’m a carcass with marrow bones 5x’s an ice bear at 1,500 lb. and 9 feet tall. One swipe of my paw, and you’re neck-snapped, to the ice, melt ground, cheek to red ice stream. I glance across to the whiteness to myself. ]

 

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Writing has always been a safe space for dg okpik. She started her first journal at 12 years old and filled the pages with thoughts about her family travels. Most summers they would pack up a Winnebago and drive across Alaska and Canada while her father followed military assignments.  

“I would write about my experiences along the road,” said okpik. “Writing gave me a way of seeing the world.”

Her identity developed as her family moved around. She fondly remembers the beauty of the Alaskan frontier, especially its waterways, and how they lived off the land. It was an experience that felt magical to her, inspiring her to write even more. 

“I enjoy the fantastical and the impossible and the beautiful and the ugly,” she explained. “And I like to be able to pen it on the page and make it alive.“

Writing quickly became a way for okpik to make sense of the unique life her family was leading. It also helped her sort through challenges in her personal life and in relation to her own identity. Okpik was adopted at a young age. She says having two families was wonderful in some ways, but it also felt like she was walking in two worlds. 

“Writing gave me a place to be in both areas of the world, in the Inupiaq world, and in the white world,” she explained. “It made it mesh and helped me see my identity.”

Claire standing in Livingroom on zoom.

dg okpik in her home in Santa Fe, N.M., Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. Her cat Blue lurks out of frame.

PHOTO VIA ZOOM / NEXTGENRADIO

Okpik’s  professional career began as a hairdresser while still a teenager. Even though she had been an avid writer since she was young, the idea of turning writing into a career didn’t take hold until she was cutting a friend’s hair one day. That friend, who happened to be a professor at a local university, would often ask okpik to tell him stories while she cut his hair. Unbeknownst to her, he was collecting each story and gifted them back to her in written form, saying she should compile the pages of stories into a book. 

“And it was then that I felt empowered, that I could do this and that I could have a story to share with the world that no one else would have. I just kept writing and writing, becoming better and better.”

Woman with glasses and blue jeans sits in a couch and reads a book.

dg okpik reads an excerpt from her book Blood Snow from her home in Santa Fe, N.M., Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. Her poems have won her multiple awards.

PHOTO VIA ZOOM / NEXTGENRADIO

Hand-written text on a notebook.

An example of the cluster poems of dg okpik. The poet writes all of her poems on paper, she rarely uses a computer when writing. 

dj opik / NEXTGENRADIO

Soon after, okpik began enrolling in writing classes and eventually landed at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for her bachelor’s degree in creative writing. 

Okpik’s first book, Corpse Whale, would be published right before she began pursuing her master’s at Stone Coast College in Maine. When she asked if the campus bookstore could carry her book, like they did for professors and former students, she was denied. They claimed it would be too intimidating for other students. But okpik didn’t let this challenge hinder her progress. After graduating, she went on to win multiple prestigious awards, including the Truman Capote Literary Award and the May Sarton Award for her poetry. She has most recently won the Lannan Family Foundation Fellowship which will see her returning to teach at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Okpik hopes that she can share some of the lessons that life has taught her to the students at IAIA. She also spends time working with children in public schools through Project Identity, a non-profit dedicated to sharing the healing power of arts to at-risk students.

I always just say I’m an artist. I’m not a teacher,” she said. ”I’m not a professor because we only share what we know. We share the good things. And those things come to me as a student of life and not so much as a teacher of life.

In addition to life lessons, okpik enjoys sharing the beauty and cultural heritage of Alaska with the world. Her newest book is an homage to the beauty of the natural world in her home state.

Okpik’s newest book, Blood Snow, is a compendium of poetry featuring scenes from okpik’s childhood in the Alaskan north. She describes the poetry inside as “naked and stark,” giving her words life in a way that mimics the beautiful, primordial energy of her home. 

 

Photo of the page of a book that reads a poem named “She Sang to Me Once at a Place for Hunting Owls” by dg okpik.

 A poem from dg okpik’s book Corpse Whale. Her poems tell stories of Indigenous experiences and life in Alaska.

PHOTO VIA ZOOM / NEXTGENRADIO

The first poem from that book is a great example:

Whiteout Polar Bears

 

Dead on—in the night sky,

or stuck in the deep web,

bear stars exist. Name the

bone piles on the marsh

heaving like the Chukchi

sea-pure-ice-white and

Arctic air rising. Fifty miles

of open water floating.

I’m a carcass with

marrow bones 5x’s an ice

bear at 1,500 lb. and 9 feet

tall. One swipe of my paw

you’re neck-snapped, to the ice,

melt ground, cheek to red

ice stream. I glance across

the whiteness to myself.

Okpik feels that by bringing Alaska and Inuit culture to others, she can show that her culture is still alive and thriving. She also hopes that her poetry can inspire new protections for the natural wonders in her homeland. 

“To bring about the beauty of Alaska to each individual would be my utmost honor,” okpik said. “To bring that natural world to light, instead of man’s world.”