RaveZYZZYVAWhereas is Layli Long Soldier’s first book of poetry, and what an exquisite book it is ... '38,' which closes the book’s first section, highlights how Long Soldier writes poetry that treats history and poetry as living, unstructured, and unending things. Rules and requirements for poetry and for historiography do not apply here. The result is both a poem and a volume of poetry that pushes readers to reconsider how we understand written words and expression ... As a volume of poetry, Whereas offers something, especially in our current climate, that is alternately hopeful and depressing, depending on how radical your vision is. Though Long Soldier’s work should not be considered an easy stand-in for the processes of decolonization or undoing the U.S. government’s colonial violence, she pushes us, through formal experimentation and her refusal to be silent in the face of history and oppression, to consider that, at the very least, work like hers can play a role.
