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Poem / Counterpoint

Matryoshka Song

An Indigenous anthropologist-poet speaks to the Russian colonization of Alaska from 1784–1867 and how stereotypes and histories shape the lives of Indigenous women.
By Abigail Chabitnoy
11 Aug 2021
Four painted Russian dolls of different sizes lined up from largest to smallest frozen in a block of ice.

Andrew Bret Wallis/Getty Images

Matryoshka Song - Listen
0:59

If you missed the introduction to “Matryoshka Song,” you can find it here.

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I put an awl case
on my belt
around my waste, just like the placard said

I am industrious   mother

I sport the awl, like the picture book shows

I am an industry   mother

The little pouch
is for starting fires

I am hospitable   mother

I carry the fire
in my mouth, the way the bible teaches

I am a hospital   mother

I wear a knife
to feed the people

I too am generous   mother

I feed the people
in their belly
with my knife

They made me a general   mother

Abigail Chabitnoy

Abigail Chabitnoy is the author of In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful (forthcoming, Wesleyan 2022); How to Dress a Fish, shortlisted for the 2020 International Griffin Prize for Poetry and winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award; and the linocut illustrated chapbook Converging Lines of Light. She currently teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts low-residency MFA program and is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Chabitnoy is a member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak, Alaska. She has an MFA in poetry and a B.A. in English and anthropology.

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