Bwai \ Remapping

Abstract

This thesis is a collection of twenty visual poems and a poetics statement that comments on LandBack, biodiversity, and conservation. The visual poems draw maps of occupied Indigenous territories in tribal languages and draw the bodies of animals on definition examples to create the body of the poems. The poems rely on the images of the animals and mapped territories to create poems that frame these animals and territories as sacred. This creative writing is influenced by the Yoeme bwikam, the NDN Collective, The Red Nation, Jessica Mehta, Layli Long Soldier, and our non-human relatives with whom we share the land.