B.A. Van Sise: On the National Language: The Poetry of America’s Endangered Tongues

On the National Language: The Poetry of America’s Endangered Tongues – B.A. Van Side – 978-0-7643-6814-1 – Hardcover – 176 pages – September 28, 2024 – $50.00 – Schiffer Publishing

This book was irresistible to me from the outset. I’ve long been interested in both the indigenous languages of the Americas, as well as how culture and language interact to define human beings as simultaneously unique and alike. B.A. Van Sise is a terrifically innovative and imaginative photographer, who has worked extensively with endangered-language speakers, students, and those who now seek to revitalize and rebirth formerly lost languages. He spent three years traveling the US to discover and highlight some of the many languages and cultures here, focusing on America’s vast diversity, with its many surviving Indigenous communities and language groups that have been either birthed or given refuge here.

Combining photographs and poetry, as well as narrative makes for a spectacular book.

I couldn’t miss the opportunity to speak with B.A. about this project and his work in general. He is an amazing person, and I think our conversation demonstrates his brilliance and unique presentation of so many individuals and cultures throughout this book (and the traveling show that accompanies it). The project’s principal aim is to raise awareness for these languages and their revitalization initiatives and it succeeds brilliantly in achieving that purpose. This is a truly important and powerful book.

Awarded the 2024 Anthem Award for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences and it was a finalist for the 2022 Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography, recipient of a residency at Millay Arts, medaled in the Prix de la Photographie Paris 2023 and earned the Los Angeles Center for Photography’s 2022 ‘best new exhibition’ prize.

We can’t do credit to the photographs in the book, nor even the poetry, in this limited space. Please visit the author’s website https://bavansise.format.com/ and if you can make it to one of the exhibits, you should definitely go. And of course you can buy the book too.

The exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles runs through March 2, 2025.

“The full-page photos — accompanied by brief descriptions — are mesmerizing. …Laced among these photographs are poems by writers from diverse cultural groups. Anyone picking up this stunning book will experience what speakers of Koasati call “ihoochastontihchotok” (“bringing time back from the past to now”)”—Ron Charles, Washington Post                   

“…breathtaking testimony to the demographic richness of the U.S. and the beautiful diversity of its linguistic landscape.”–Booklist