John Smelcer 
Raven 
poems

In the mythologies of cultures worldwide, Raven, or his smaller cousin, Crow, is often portrayed as an ever-selfish, ever-hungry trickster and destroyer. In this collection, John Smelcer has crafted Raven as all these things, but also as an Instigator who was present at key moments of human history when things went awry. This is the collection that Hughes considered to be the American cousin to his Crow.

Table of Content

“Crow, Raven, and the Hughes-Plath Family Tree”
The Unlikely History of the Art of Raven

Mythopoetica

The Birth of Raven 1
Ravencolor 2
Raven’s Song of Himself 3
A Lingering Doubt 4
The Day after Saturday
Creation Myth 5
Raven and the First People 6
Raven’s Theology 7
When God Tried to Teach 8
Raven to Speak
When God Tried to Teach 9
Raven Mathematics
When God Tried to Teach 10
Raven Compassion
Raven Remembers 11
What Raven Had for Breakfast 12
The Temptation of Eve 13
The Mark of Cain 14
God Apologizes for the Flood
Exodus Raven
The Other Temptation of Christ 15
Passover, 33 A. D. 16
Golgotha
The Substitute 17
Beowraven 18
Raven Fly Trap 19
Raven’s Vision 20
Raven Sends Out a Search Party 21
Raven’s Hit List 22
Raven Remodels the World 23
Extinction Theory 24
Raven and Killer Whale 25
The Dog Husband 26
When Raven Tried Benevolence 27
Raven, the Problem-Solver 28
The Corpse King 30
Raven’s Mask 31
The Blue Prince 32
The Birth of Iago
Instigator
Frankenraven
Stool Pigeon 33
To Build a Fire 34
Raven & Vinny
Raven’s Titanic Fun
Raven Cum Laude 35
Heil Raven 37
Role Model
Civil Disobedience
Electric Raven
New York City, 1969 38
Raven’s Doppelganger 40
A Tibetan Myth 42
Raven’s Shell Game
Freud Discovers the God Complex
Raven Goes on a Game Show
Gender Bender
Raven Pulls his Trump Card
Raven Writes the Epitaph for Humanity
The Law of Entropy 43

In the Language Raven Gave Us

Zen Raven 45
The Meaning of Life 46
Prayer Singer 48
A Minor Correction 49
Hunter’s Luck 50
When Raven Was Killed 52
Hide & Seek with Raven 54
Raven & Butterfly 55



Corax Corax

After a Sermon at the Church 57
Paradise Lost 58
Unemployment Line 59
Raven Takes a Career 60
American Indian Self-Police 61
Returning the Gift 62
The Meal
Kinship 64
Witness 65
Ravens at Auschwitz
Raven Oracle
A Raven Funeral 66
The Great Religious Trial 68
Raven Addresses the Jury
A Modern Day Indian Fairy Tale 69
Roadkill
The Myth-Makers Imbibe 70

About the author

John Smelcer is a member of the Traditional Native Village of Tazlina and a shareholder of Ahtna Native Corporation. For three years, he was the executive director of the Ahtna Heritage Foundation, charged with preserving Ahtna culture, history, and language. Taught by every living elder in his tribe, John is one of the last speakers of his severely endangered language and the only tribal member able to read and write fluently in it. In 1998, he published The Ahtna Noun Dictionary and Pronunciation Guide. He is also one among the last speakers of Alutiiq, a neighboring, yet unrelated language. In 2010, he edited and published a noun dictionary of that endangered language.
In 1998, John was nominated for the Alaska Governor’s Award for his contributions to the preservation of Alaska Native languages and cultures. In 1999, Ahtna Traditional Chief Harry Johns held a special ceremony to designate John as a Traditional Ahtna Culture Bearer, a term usually reserved for elders with significant cultural knowledge. John Smelcer is the author of over fifty books, including Beautiful Words: The Complete Ahtna Poems, the only existing literature published in the Ahtna language. His novels include The Trap, The Great Death, Edge of Nowhere, Lone Wolves, Savage Mountain, Stealing Indians and Kiska. In 1995, John co-edited Durable Breath: Contemporary Native American Poetry. In 2013, with Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), John co-edited Native American Classics, a graphic novel of 19th and early 20th century Native American literature. For almost a quarter century, John Smelcer served as poetry editor at Rosebud.