Constant Fires

The latest collection of poems from award-winning Chickasaw poet Rebecca Hatcher Travis brings readers to a deeper understanding of the Chickasaw people and perspective. Sixty poems are presented in four sections titled ＂Blood Streaks,＂ ＂Stirrings,＂ ＂Voices in Place,＂ and ＂Earth Echoes.＂ Constant Fires captures the stories, struggles, and people of past generations, rejoices in the perseverance and determination of First Americans, and celebrates the beauty of nature and our connection to the natural world.

Rebecca Hatcher Travis is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation whose roots are deep in Indian Territory, Oklahoma, and Texas. Her poetry manuscript, Picked Apart the Bones, won the First Book Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas in 2006 and was published in 2008 by Chickasaw Press. Her work has also appeared in literary journals, anthologies, online, and recently in Tending the Fire: Native Voices and Portraits, a collection of pieces by and photographs of Native poets and writers, published in 2017 by University of New Mexico Press. Travis is a member of the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. She lives in the foothills of the Arbuckle Mountains in southern Oklahoma, near the land her ancestors settled in early Indian Territory days. She continues to write and give readings at several venues near her home.