Bright Advent by Robert Strong is a collection of
poems about the colonization of North America by religious English Puritans in the
1600’s. The poems focus on missionary John Eliot and his effort to convert
Indigenous Algonquians of the Dawnland (or what the colonists claimed as “New
England”) to his puritan faith. The book centers on the creation of a
Native-language translation of the Bible called Up-Biblum God by John Sassamon under the coercion / direction of
Eliot but includes nods to King Philip’s War and surrounding larger-scale and
more intimate conflicts. Many of the poems are epistolary or in the form of
conversational transcripts. Mainly these poems are written in the voices of Eliot or Sassamon. The book is largely about translation – of language, thought, religion and culture –
and the layered dangers at play therein. There is a helpful historian’s note at
the beginning of the book written by Christine DeLucia. Notes are in the
back-end of the book, including an author’s statement, historical timeline, and
extensive bibliography of source materials and suggested further reading.
read an interview with Strong about the book here: https://www.bates.edu/news/2017/06/15/qa-poet-robert-strong-on-bright-advent-and-king-philips-war/
the author’s website: https://robertstrong.net/
purchase here: https://www.mariealexanderseries.com/books/bright-advent
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