Through the weaving of documentary poetics, first-hand accounts, dialogue, and lyric, these poems tell the story of co-running a school at the Ocethi Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock.
Something Small of How to See a River interrogates the idea of narrative. Who gets to tell a story and what does it mean when the official story, the story told by the governor, the police, or the local media, is a fundamentally dishonest one? The poems collected here meditate on failure: how systems fail us and our environment, how whiteness fails to hold itself accountable, how future generations and the land are being failed—and how, in the face of all this, the Standing Rock movement was not a failure. At the heart of this collection is the strength, care, and radical joy of the movement, which shines through and against the violence.
Format: Paperback
Published: October 2025
ISBN: 9781946482822
Teresa Dzieglewicz is a poet, educator, and lover of rivers and prairies. She is a fellow with Black Earth Institute, a Poet-in-Residence at the Chicago Poetry Center, and part of the founding team of Mni Wichoni Nakicizin Wounspe (Defenders of the Water School). She organizes “Watershed: Ways of Knowing the Chicago River” with poet/visual artist, Natasha Mijares. Her first book of poetry, Something Small of How to See a River was selected by Tyehimba Jess for the Dorset Prize. Her first children’s book, co-written with Kimimila Locke, is forthcoming from Chronicle Books. She has won a Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, the Gingko Prize, the Auburn Witness Prize, and the Palette Poetry Prize and has received fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Community of Writers at Tahoe, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and Brooklyn Poets. Her poems appear in Beloit Poetry Journal, Pleiades, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. Teresa lives with her family in Chicago, on Potawatomi land.
“This is the most memorable debut I’ve read in years… This book braids many voices together in a ceremony of solidarity.”
—Craig Santos Perez, author of from unincorporated territory [åmot], winner of the National Book Award
“Something Small, is an offering; a collection of poems that together reads as an epic poem and ode to all the water protectors at Standing Rock. Not the interlopers or spectators, but those who came to work in the name of our collective liberation… Teresa not only teaches us ‘how to see a river,’ but peels back the colonialist residue from the Mni Sosi, revealing a glimpse into all the life and beauty she sustains.”
—Sandy Grande, author of Red Pedagogy
“Something Small of How to See a River sings in the dark…I was captivated by these poems that reminded me of ceremony, beauty, and the depth of human connection amidst the terror.”
—Tiana Clark, author of I Can’t Talk about the Trees without the Blood
“In bracing, enlivening poems, Teresa Dzieglewicz makes her impressive debut as a poet of place and heart…I felt changed by this book.”
—Lynn Melnick, author of I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive
“Teresa’s words brought back visceral memories of being at camp—all of my senses were engaged. When I read this, I was there again.
—Kimimila Locke, Water Protector, Co-developer of Mní Wičhóni Nakíčižiŋ Woúŋspe
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WINNER of the DORSET PRIZE
“Something Small of How to See a River chronicles a vivid landscape of the struggle for sovereignty, dignity, and survival on the Standing Rock Reservation. The poet calls forth the full humanity of those standing in solidarity with the land and their children’s futures. The poet is smuggling a fresh groundwater swell of realfolk stories to testify alongside and against the sludge of headline misinformation, police reports, municipal records, and statistics. Working in the true sense of a liberatory project, here is honest, bracing news for the weary but unwavered.”
—from the Judge’s Citation by Tyehimba Jess, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
