An Interview with Poet and IAIA Alumni Jake Skeets by Rey M. Rodríguez

Chapter House Storyteller’s Blog will be highlighting exciting Institute of American Indian Art alumni/ae. In this interview, we interview Jake Skeets. He is Tsi’naajínii born for Tábąąhá; his maternal grandparents are the Táchii’nii and his paternal grandparents are the Tódík’ózhí. Skeets is Diné from Vanderwagen, New Mexico. His debut collection of poetry, Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, is a winner of the National Poetry Series, American Book Award, Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Whiting Award. His honors include a 2020-2021 Mellon Projecting All Voices Fellowship and the 2023-2024 Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. 

His poems and essays have been included in Poetry, New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, and other journals. His research around poetics and aesthetics explores Diné poetics and aesthetics, ecopoetics, Indigenous queer theories, and critical Indigenous feminisms. His work “Form, Memory: Mapping Land through Diné Poetry” is included in the book Níhi Kéyah: Navajo Homeland, edited by Lloyd L. Lee, and published by the University of Arizona Press. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for his Counter Mapping Arizona project that will bring four Indigenous artists together to discuss mapping, art-making, and artistic ecosystems.

Below, we explore some of Skeet’s poetry and essays. We discuss how grief how informs his work and whether it can be transformed into something useful when moving forward. We invite the reader to read until the end of the interview to see his advice to those studying the craft of writing.

Jake Skeets, thank you so much for your time, and welcome to the Chapter House Storyteller’s Blog. It's a real privilege to have you here. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I’d like to start with a general question. Why do you write?

It’s a question I've been asking myself a lot over the past five years or so. It's exciting to want to be a writer and devote your life to it. I never thought that I would be in this position. Writing has been a way for me to tell the stories that are often hidden. I'm interested in telling stories that are running beneath the surface. I'm very interested in a story that tries to talk back or counter, in some way, mainstream narratives of Native people. A lot of my stories and poems are trying to talk back to and resist definitions of how Native people exist. I'm always interested in how Native people can exist as complicated people.

Hmm.

My poems, essays, and the stories I've written so far have all been very complicated. They have taken a lot of work to get on the page. My writing is very labor intensive, which has been interesting. They involve a lot of work to get them onto the page. I write because those stories need to be told. And it's a way to offer a kind of humanity to the people I write because often the government, our government, removes peoplehood from Native people. And so, I'm interested in trying to offer that back.

How did you get into writing?

I don't know exactly. When I was in elementary school, we had our classes in the library because of overfill. We had too many students and not enough classrooms. I went to a small elementary school called David Skeet Elementary in Vanderwagen, New Mexico, During recess all the kids would go out to play in the playground but I would stay in the library because we were there already. Our library had these huge bean bags and had this indoor tree house kind of thing. So, I'd grab a book and go up to the second level of the tree house and just sit there and read for the time that we're all supposed to be playing outside. I just continued to do that from my second-grade year into my third-grade year, when I was in the library. I was oftentimes the only person who was checking out books because I would see my name on the checkout slip and I was the only name there. I started writing maybe because I was reading a lot.

I always excelled in my English classes In junior high and high school. I knew the ways in which a sentence was structured. I knew the way a narrative was structured because I had spent all that time reading. And so, I think I began writing because of reading. 

I don't know if my parents know this, but they helped me a lot. They're not academics or writers, but they do read interesting stuff. My dad was big on thrillers, mysteries, and crime novels. So, he'd have them lying around the house all the time. When I was a kid, I would read them. I would just go through and read them from cover to cover. My mom used to work for the Navajo Nation Social Services Department. She dealt with a lot of children. 

She'd always carry these bags of children's books and chapter books for the children she was working with. I read through all of those as well. I began writing because of all that. It's the only thing I'm good at. I think it's my calling. It’s felt very organic. I've never had any kind of resistance or obstacles to pursuing a writing career. It's always been supported. Whether it's been my parents, my family, my teachers, and even programs in school. And my writing is only possible because of all of that help.

Can you paint a picture of your hometown?

I consider two places as my hometown. The first is Vanderwagen, New Mexico, which is located on the Navajo Nation. When you enter Vanderwagen there's a gas station to your right of the road as you're entering from the north. It's no longer there, unfortunately, but it was my go-to place because it was the only gas station in town. That's where we’d go as kids. Sometimes we would beg our bus driver to stop so we could get hot Cheetos, nachos, and sodas from the gas station before we got back to the house. I grew up in a pink trailer just off Highway 602, which is a main road for many of the families that live in that area. 

My second home is Gallup, New Mexico, which is a very storied place. It sits on Route 66 and when I matriculated into middle, junior, and high school, I was bussed into Gallup. I was, often, one of the first to be picked up and part of the last ones to be dropped off. A lot of my poems, stories, and essays center on Gallup in some strange way because it’s a border town, right? And in most border places there's a lot of hostility and violence that exist there. But it's also necessary for a lot of people. A lot of Navajo families travel to Gallup for groceries and feed for livestock. Probably one of my favorite places in the world is the Gallup Flea Market because there are all these vendors and food stands. If you haven't been, you should check it out whenever you're in New Mexico. It's on Saturdays, and it's an interesting space, it’s a time when the population of Gallup increases temporarily because of all the people traveling into the town.

In your poems and essays, you reference grief. In your essay, “The Other House,” you wrote something that resonated deeply with me. You write about a “yearning for an absence of grief.” When did you come to this sense of yearning? And what does that mean to you?

I wrote that essay at the height of the pandemic. I was living in Tsaile, Arizona at the time.

It is a small town at the base of the Chuska Mountains on the Navajo Nation. I was teaching at Diné College. The pandemic hit the reservation quite hard. We had very severe lockdowns. We couldn't leave our house after 6 pm. We couldn't leave our houses at all during the weekends. It was a weird, dystopian existence on the reservation at the time. There was this strange fear with all that loss happening around us. Navajo people were dying at alarming rates. When Emergence Magazine, the place where the essay is published, approached me, they asked me about an essay on apocalypse. We were all thinking about the apocalypse then and I was seeing a kind of dystopian reality around me. So, I wrote into that idea and then I reflected on “Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers,” my first book.

Hmm.

That book was a lot of “grief work.” That is what I’ve called it. I had to read through all these stories of people dying in Gallup, Mexico. I had to revisit the story of my uncle. I was having all that grief writing itself in my consciousness, right? I wanted to imagine a time and place when and where I wasn't feeling that pressure and not feeling all those stories move through my body. I'm very interested in the idea of time and how time is entangled with grief. When we go through something traumatic, we're told, Just give it time. Take it day by day, right? Eventually, time will heal you in some ways, right? 

But we know that grief may operate like time. It operates parallel with time. So, we don't forget how we feel hurt. Or how we feel loss, or how we feel tragedy. It's remembered. It's stored somewhere in the body. Grief is very much something permanent for us. And when we go through the realities of our lives. Often, we think time will help us. That in the future, or someplace in the future, we won't feel the grief that we feel. But I think we realize or become fully aware that that's not going to be possible. So, for me, I'm very much interested in grief being a desire for anti-grief. I want to exist in a place where we don't feel this feeling, but that's not possible, right? And that's part of grief itself. That's part of the reality, of this particular kind of sadness that is not going away. It becomes part of who we are as people. Grief is a kind of a peoplehood.

Did grief transform you?

Hmm, I think so, especially during the pandemic because of the isolation. I had my partner with me. So, I wasn't alone. But being in quarantine inside your house for that amount of time you think about a lot of things and reflect on what you've done. And there was a lot of talk about the future, about when the pandemic would be over right? There was a lot of talk of the things we took for granted, like being able to drive and go to the store for nachos.

Yeah.

And looking back on it now, I was obsessed with trying to change my life in a way after the pandemic. I kept thinking I was gonna be a different person because now I know what it's like to not be able simple things. I think grief very much changed my outlook on my life. I began teaching differently because of the pandemic. I began writing differently because of it. And now, when I'm out in the world, I try to remember that all this could be taken away so easily, right? Something as small as a virus can take it all away. So last night we were at a dance party here at the conference resort, existing in the moment. And being grateful that we're able to do it. I feel it's changed who I am and how I operate.

And do you think you can transform grief?

Hmm! I think back to what I was saying. The grief is a part of us. It becomes encoded in our DNA. And so, because we change as people, I think grief also changes and adapts.

So yeah, I do think you can transform grief because you can turn it into things that help you exist in the world. It can help you appreciate someone or something because you know that at any point in life, it can be taken away. Tomorrow, as the saying goes, is not something that's guaranteed. Rex Lee Jim, who's a Diné poet and former Vice President of the Navajo Nation teaches that we are supposed to wake up before the sun rises and run in the morning. At that time, we are supposed to greet the sun, and offer thanks. He said we should not take the sunrise for granted. And he said we are not supposed to think about the morning as “just another morning,” or “another sunrise.” We are supposed to see it as a miracle because it is. When you think about it, it truly is because anything could have happened during the night, right? For some reason, the universe and the things at play are offering us this new morning.

I love that. 

And we should be grateful for it. We should show some appreciation that we were offered this additional sunrise. Grief can help us see those opportunities a little clearer.

Death informs life.

Yes, very much.

I was listening to you as you read your poem “Drifter” at UC Berkeley and I don't know how you read that poem without crying. I'm fairly emotional.

I see.

I felt like you were in an environment that was almost hyper-academic. I couldn't imagine how you were talking about your uncle in that way in what seemed a cold academic setting. I don’t know how it was received by the audience, but my heart went out to you. It is so personal and so heavy. Maybe it is because sadness increases our empathy. I couldn't imagine reading that poem but you handled it so well. I'm very curious as to when you read that poem is it different, depending on the audience?

Actually, when the book first came out, I did sort of bust out in tears, probably maybe 90% of the time, because it was such an intense grief. I had to move through grief in ways I hadn't before.

Hmm.

Which I thought was interesting, because up until that point I thought being a writer, being a poet, was not as emotional or heavy, right? That it was so much about grief was very much a surprise to me. Yes, during the first few months of Eyes Bottle Dark being out, I was very emotional. It took a lot for me to do readings. It took a lot of work to not bust out in tears a lot of the times. But now looking back, I now know how to better protect myself. I'm super grateful for the places where Eyes Bottle Dark has taken me. But I do think that at times my grief led to despair. My grief was turned into a spectacle, right?

Oh!

Yeah.

I see that because people need to feel your pain.

Yeah.

It's so important that people understand. It's so hard to be that vulnerable in front of strangers. I was just so moved by your reading.

Well, thanks. It's been a process to learn how to read in front of an audience.

How do you craft a poem like “Drifter” that's so personal?

Poetry involves the personal. There's not a way to think outside of yourself, right? You have to involve elements of who you are as a person. You have to involve all these different layers to your humanity. There's no way to walk against it, which is why I’m not so worried about AI-generated poetry because AI never has to experience grief. 

That's great, but how do you get in touch with the personal? I'm reading “Notes From Underground” by Fyodor Dostoevsky. He writes about there being three layers to writing a memoir. One is to reveal secrets you're willing to tell others like your close friends. Another is to reveal secrets you're willing to tell yourself about yourself. The last is to tell those secrets that you're not even willing to reveal to yourself. Do you find that you get to poetry when you're able to write about those things that you weren't willing to even tell yourself?

You hit the nail on the head with that one. When you're writing any genre, the writing process reveals certain aspects of your life to you. It's almost like holding up a mirror, right?

And often, it takes a lot of bravery to look at your reflection. Because not only are you composing the work, but, after the thing is written, you're going to have to edit and revise it. It's a process of intensely looking at yourself, looking at your reflection, and then having the bravery to show it to the public. I think it's an interesting process, which, again, I think you know, being a writer, is a very interesting choice that people make. I want to be this kind of vessel in some ways. It is a practice that involves a lot of looking at your reflection, looking at your life, looking at your grief, and understanding, and pulling at the tendrils and synapses and the threads of that grief out in the public. You're not doing this in solitary. You're not doing this alone or in isolation. If you want to be a writer who exists out in the world, you're doing it in front of a public and so you must be strategic about what you write, what you don't, what you edit, and what you don't.

That's great. And what do you consider poetry?

For me, poetry involves sound. Poetry is interested in sound because some of the oldest traditions of poetry—if we think about it from a Eurocentric viewpoint—are poetry performed orally. Indigenous culture also has a tradition in orality. I'm curious about ways to offer the page a kind of sonic that is not available in our everyday lives. I'm trying to find words and clash words against other words that make a beautiful kind of resonance in my head or in my ear. I think that's what differentiates poetry from the other genres. But I also do think that other genres often employ poetic techniques: there are novels that are beautifully written and there are essays that are beautifully written. So, it's not something that pertains only to poetry. But I think when you decide to be a poet, you are deciding to focus on the small things because nothing can be taken for granted in a poem. It's almost as if every punctuation mark, every space, every letter becomes important. You are making a decision to devote your practice to it.

And would you consider yourself more of a storyteller than a poet, or more of a poet than a storyteller? I'm curious, because when I interviewed m.s. RedCherries she spoke to the idea that Indigenous people have been telling stories forever, and don't need to be compartmentalized as to whether they write poetry, novels, or whatever.

I resonate with that. And I can echo it. Stories are the point for us as writers, regardless of genre. We are telling stories, especially in an Indigenous sort of way of thinking. We are all invested in stories. Stories are the ways in which we exist still today, right? We rely on creation stories. We rely on stories from our family.

But I'm still interested in labeling myself a poet in my social media bios. The only word I have in my bio is poet. So, I still consider myself a poet, even though I'm writing essays and writing fiction. I still consider myself a poet because when I label myself as such I am connecting myself with this very long, very storied history of poetry, in general.

Hmm.

I'm inserting myself into this history and taking up space. Because again US American poetry is not something that we think of as existing in any way with a Native or Indigenous history. I make it a political point to call myself a poet. It is a political move to label myself a poet, to declare I'm writing poetry. So, I think moving forward I'll always call myself a poet first. It's poet and writer, Jake Skeets. Even though, if I'm writing other genres. I'm always going to make it a point to say I'm a poet first. 

That's fascinating. When I read “The Other House” it felt and read like a poem.

That’s what I mean. Poetry is part of who I am. I’ve dwelled so long within poetry. 

You even have some poetry inside the essay. You are very careful with your words. You could tell that each word mattered.

Thank you. Yes, my process involves a lot of heavy consideration of words, their weight, their sound, and their texture on the page.

I listened to some of your poems that you read with Navajo words in them and then I read ones that did not and had not been recorded. I was saddened that I couldn’t hear you read them that did not include Navajo words because I like your voice. It's clear that you have a unique sound. I'm curious because I insert Spanish into my poems. Who are you writing to when you use Navajo? Is it for yourself and then whoever understands it? I don't translate my Spanish and I know some people will get it and others won't. And I'm okay with that. But I'm curious as to your insertion of Navajo into your poetry and how you employ it. 

I know that there's going to be a public at the end of my poetry writing. And I know that a lot of people reading my poems will not be able to pick up on some words, especially if those words are Navajo words. And this does help me during composition; knowing that there will be some stranger who is not Native or who is not Navajo who will read my poem. I also know the public and its readership read Native works through a kind of colonial veil.  

Yes.

There's not a way in which they can escape it. And so, I write into that exchange with that particular audience because I'm trying to undo the many years of literature that has fetishized and exploited Native people. And in that way, I believe I am writing for and to my people from and on the reservation. I come from the best storytellers, my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins can out-story me any day of the week. Navajo people are always trying to tell their stories as carefully as possible. So it’s almost like I have to pay very close attention to what I say because I’m trying to honor the stories that exist where I come from. 

So what does an anti-colonial future look like for you?

For me, an anti-colonial future does not include the United States. I don't think that government as we know it and define it today is going to be possible in an anti-colonial future because the possibility of government in the United States right now relies on our erasure as Indigenous people. It involves the disappearance of Native people and Black and Brown people. Our government cannot function without those parameters. When we insist on life and our stories, it means we're taking away the right for the United States to exist. And, so for me, an anti-colonial future is very much one without the United States in it. Which I know is radical and I  know it's probably not possible and it’s quite discomforting to imagine what could be on the other end of it.

Is this a kind of survivance? We would have to get rid, too, of capitalism, right?

Yeah, very much. I define survivance as insisting on our right to our survival.

And in order for that to happen then we need a future in which we're seen as human.

Yep, very much, and capitalism, as we know it now, does not see us as human. Capitalism turns us into a machine that generates profit.

And it requires poverty in it.

Yes, right. You can't have the rich without knowing what the poor look like, right? So, it requires poverty. 

What's next for you?

My second poetry collection is coming out in the spring of 2026, which I'm excited about. It's a poetry collection that I devoted a lot of time to and it's one that I didn't have anybody read beforehand, except for a few people like my agents, my editor, and my mentor Sherwin Bitsui. Sherwin read a very early version and he asked me to send him the final version just recently.  I wanted this book to be just me. Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers was written mostly around workshop. So my second book became about testing myself as a poet and writer out in the wild. 

Does it have a name?

The second collection is entitled, “Horses.”

I see.

I have a novel right now that’s finished. I sent it off to my agents and I'm excited about its future. I'm always working on essays. Essays have been quite a reprieve for me actually. They've offered me time and space to reflect on my own life and work out the kinks of my existence. 

That's great!

I'm always still getting people coming up to me saying, “Oh, I read, ‘The Other House.’ I read ‘The Memory Field.’ And it's really resonated.” So I know that I'm at least writing essays that are impacting people. At some point in the future, there will be an essay collection. But I think I just need to do a little bit more living for that to happen.

Any advice you have for the Institute of American Indian Art writing students?

My advice is to focus on very small things. I know oftentimes, when I was there especially, there was always this looming future. I kept thinking, “I want to be a writer. I want to do all these things.” And I know what that looks like and what that feels like. I know what that yearning looks like. But it was through great mentors and great teachers that they were able to refocus my attention to very, very small things on the page.  Focus on writing a good sentence, a good paragraph, or a good line, right? Focus on those things. And eventually, it'll unfold into this future that you want. But it must start with those small things, it has to be you obsessing over punctuation marks, spacing, and sound. Those things make the future possible.

That's great advice. Thank you for giving so much of your time and energy to the Chapter House Storyteller’s Blog. We so appreciate you.

Rey M. Rodríguez is a writer, advocate, and attorney. He lives in Pasadena, California. He is working on a novel set in Mexico City and a non-fiction history of a prominent nonprofit in East LA. He has attended the Yale Writers' Workshop multiple times and Palabras de Pueblo workshop once. He also participates in Story Studio's Novel in a Year Program. He is a first-year fiction creative writing student at the Institute for American Indian Arts' MFA Program. This fall his poetry will be published in Huizache. His other book reviews are at La Bloga, the world's longest-established Chicana-Chicano, Latina-Latino literary blog, Charter House's blog, IAIA's journal, and Los Angeles Review.