Heid E. Erdrich: Finding Connections in Creativity and Collaboration

Transcript

Heid E. Erdrich: My mom is a visual artist, and she taught arts and crafts at a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school of all things, which is a campus upon which I grew up. Complicated. She always encouraged us to be creative. My dad loved poetry and always encouraged us to recite poems. So those things made my notion that I'd have a creative life, you know, just basic to who I was.

Leah Lemm: Boozhoo, hello. Welcome to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. I'm your host. Leah Lemm. Miigwech for joining me. Native Lights is more than a podcast and radio show. At its core, it's a place for Native folks to tell their stories. Every week, we have great conversations with wonderful guests from a bunch of different backgrounds, musicians, doctors, artists, educators, authors, you name it. We speak with a bunch of people with a wonderful mixture of passions, and we get to hear about their gifts and how they share those gifts with their community, and it all centers around the big point of purpose in our lives. And it's another day, another opportunity to amplify Native Voices. And again, I'm solo hosting without my co-host and sibling, Mr. Cole Premo. He and his wife Mariya are new parents. So he's taking some time off, which I'm super excited about. I will be glad when he's back. But for now, we'll let him spend some time snuggling with his new baby. But I am really excited to share my conversation with you today with Heid E Erdrich. Heid is an author, researcher, educator, curator, and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. In 2024, she was the inaugural Minneapolis Poet Laureate. And in 2025, she served as the James and Lois Welch Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Montana - Missoula. Her recent books are Boundless: Abundance in Native American Art and Literature, which she co-edited, and Verb Animate: Poems, Prose and Prompts from Collaborative Acts. So we get to hear more about her collaborative work and how she navigates her creative career. Please enjoy my conversation with Heid E. Erdrich.

Heid E. Erdrich: Good to see you.

Leah Lemm: Boozhoo, Heid. Can you please introduce yourself and where you're joining from?

Heid E. Erdrich: I'm Heid Erdrich. I am joining you from Minneapolis.

Leah Lemm: Wonderful. And how are you and your family doing?

Heid E. Erdrich: You know what? We're okay. Things are happening around the world, and most of them are worse than what we're getting through. So I'm just keeping it like glass half full.

Leah Lemm: So Heid, is there anything you are thinking about these days that's kind of top of mind?

Heid E. Erdrich: Well, of course, I'm thinking about how difficult the changes in American governance have been and will be for Indigenous people all over the world. So I mean, I think I'm a very political person, so I'm preoccupied with the political. I'm impressed by the Miccosukee for fighting back against the concentration camp on their land, but I'm also, at the same time, always working out something else that's kind of, you know, more coming from my artistic center, and I have sort of two competing things right now. One is the research that I've done about family. You know, I always had abundant family stories. But I didn't really know sort of the paper trail or the facts around some of the things my mom's family, Turtle Mountain enrollees, and we have tons on that. But some of the Metis people I got interested in, I got interested in learning more about Canada and the vast territories people crossed, you know, in the 1700s and through the 1800s. So, like, I've been sort of just thinking about my ancestors, and at the same time, I have been researching for a few years on one of my non-Indigenous ancestors who has this, like, a really long family background in the United States. So I was just learned a lot about that. And they came from Massachusetts originally. When they first came, they came from England to Massachusetts for the most part. So I've been doing a couple little visits here and there in Massachusetts and looking at the places that they lived. So, yes, sort of a strange confluence of directions, north and from the east. And, you know, I feel like, how did I get here in the middle?

Leah Lemm: Yeah? Like you're this node that things are, that the histories come towards, and, yeah, what are the probabilities of all that like coming to you?

Heid E. Erdrich: Yeah, that's the huge thing. So this person got sick, and that person stopped going west with the Mormons. And, you know, this other person was taken in by these Native people at Mille Lacs, and therefore, a generation later, married my great grandmother, you know, just very, just odd, odd things. My great grandmother wasn't from Mille Lacs, but that person had lived among Native people, and I guess just decided that was, that was his bag from then on.

Leah Lemm: What does that do to your perspective to current times?

Heid E. Erdrich: You know what? That's the big artistic challenge, right? Is, how do I bring that? It can't just be nostalgia or curiosity about the past. It has to be about how this is meaningful to me now. Of course, I've been thinking about migration and immigration a lot, so there's a lot of that I've been thinking about. Why Americans stay in the country? Why stay? Native people, we stay because it's our land. I don't understand and sometimes, why it's so important to so many people who don't actually make a living off the land or have long histories of it. Why? You know, why are you staying? I'm curious. So I'm starting to talk to people a little bit about, like, why did your family stay here? When did they come here? Why are they staying here?

Leah Lemm: Can you tell me a little bit more about the research? How are you researching this? Is it just like you go to the U of M or something and just like, look at archives. But like, I'd imagine it's a little more than that.

Heid E. Erdrich: Yeah, I've looked at archives. I was lucky enough to do an archival project with Amherst College, and they have a special collections in Native literature. And I was working on an exhibition using visual art involving Indigenous peoples from New England and mostly around the Connecticut River, in relationship to the Connecticut River, and then also the literature, which in that part of the country, the first literature was heavily involved and even printed by Native people. So we have hundreds of years of literary history there, and I was able to look at those things and then do a bit of my own research on the side. So that's, I mean, that's the ideal when you actually go in and you read old papers, and you get to figure things out. So like I said, I had that family, European immigrant family from way back, who were living in New England, and they have records. And then I got to see those records in Anishinaabemowin, for the Anishinaabemowin speaking people who lived there, because they lived side by side for quite a long time, and under the same laws, and Native people went to court, and those documents were written in Anishinaabemowin, and I got to see that sort of thing. And I'm not a speaker, and I'm not fluent by any means, but I can read. Okay, it's a weird thing about me, not good at speaking languages, but I can kind of get a sense of what's happening. And then comparing it, of course, to the English was really a fun project and proposition. A lot of those things are digitized, too. So if you're really curious, you can go find them on the internet. And I wasn't able to do certain things during COVID. And for me, that really lasted into 2022 I was being really careful. I traveled some, but not easily. So I ended up also learning about digital collections all over the world, and tried to read some in German, and just had a great experience finding out like, how do you track things down, and how do you relate to a country your grandparents fled? You know, what does that mean? Or a border crossed them, you know, picking up things in French, even in ancient French. So, I mean, that was like the old documents. But then the other kind of research I do is more experiential, more personal.

Leah Lemm: You're listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today, I'm chatting with Heid E. Erdrich, author, researcher, educator and curator and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. So you're doing this research. Do you know kind of what you want it to become?

Heid E. Erdrich: No, no, I've been doing it for almost five years, and I keep thinking, what is this? Is this, you know, a book of prose? I've thought of a few poems every now and then, and I've, you know, sketched a few poems out. But then they don't draw me back. And that's one of my clues to be like, maybe it's not a poem, if it doesn't draw you back to do the kind of nitty gritty crafting you have to do with a poem? I don't know quite yet. I was hoping to find out this summer.

Leah Lemm: Just like let it come to you. I know your bio is very extensive, so I could imagine that it could be one of many things, or many of many things. But I also see, you know, let me ask first, how would you describe your artistic career? Because I have, I have this bio, and I could, you know, bullet point it, but how would you describe your career arc?

Heid E. Erdrich: Varied and eclectic and full of luck. Yeah, buoyed by others. Others have been so kind to me, especially visual artists, you know, and my students. So it's just, it's never one thing. It's just a whole weaving of many, many things to no particular pattern.

Leah Lemm: I like it. Well, maybe let's, like, go back in time then and see, you know, how did you kind of get and the artist bug?

Heid E. Erdrich: Oh, well, you know, my mom is a visual artist, and she taught art and crafts at a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school of all things, which is a campus upon which I grew up. Complicated. She always encouraged us to be creative. My dad, he loved poetry and always encouraged us to recite poems. And so those things made my notion that I'd have a creative life, you know, just basic to who I was, you know. So we had skills. We all did art, we all did, you know, whatever kind of intellectual pursuit we could get to. And sometime in high school, I really felt myself committing to that. I was going to be some kind of artist, but I always, always wanted to be a teacher too. Both my parents were teachers, and so I figured teaching would support my art some way. And it kind of did, did much of my life.

Leah Lemm: Do you see it as being kind of like, I know, in talking to different artists, everybody's kind of different, but like a nine to five, sort of like, here's my professional life, or kind of just woven throughout?

Heid E. Erdrich: Yeah, no, I'm not good with boundaries. You know, I taught college. So my schedule had some open times in it, and I was able to travel, do other things, learn, research. It was really combined. And you know, when you're teaching a craft, you really learn that craft. So teaching helped me so much, teaching and reading and having poetry ready for folks. And then when I started to look at visual art. And you know, that came through my university teaching. I was asked to curate an exhibit, and then I became sort of a bug. I was like, I gotta keep doing this. So, yeah, the art kind of came organically from the same place, but I try not to think about balance, because, you know, it's like the caterpillar putting on its socks. That's what I've said. If it thought about it, it would fall over.

Leah Lemm: Yeah, balance. What is that really? So I saw, you know, in your bio, you have more and more collaborative work. Can you talk a bit about collaboration and what that means in your work?

Heid E. Erdrich: No, it's really hard. In that new book, I have Verb Animate, there's an essay in the beginning about how I'm like, I still don't really know what collaboration is. It’s like a relationship. It has so many different variations and patterns, and some people just communicate with one another and create from their conversation. And some you literally are hands on making something with someone else. And that was really an antidote to feeling like, Oh, my thoughts are my own, and it's just not that important given a whole community's thoughts and how do I connect to and work from a place where it's not just me thinking about myself alone. It's one of the things I don't enjoy about all poetry. I just didn't want to be just thinking about myself. So working with others really helped expand how I was thinking.

Leah Lemm: Do you have pointers on how to best collaborate with people?

Heid E. Erdrich: Yeah, I mean, don't have a ton of expectations to begin with, or at least state your expectations, because sometimes things start happening. There's kind of a magic of it where you are getting grooving on something and somebody is like, no, I want to do this extra bit more. And somebody else might be like, that's all I I'm doing for now. I'm, you know, it's just not going away. That's continues to be satisfying. This is my contribution. I want to move on. So you just don't expect everybody to just divvy it up and pitch in. And also just don't stop yourself from the coincidences, synchronicities, jives, vibes that happen. Just let them happen and figure out what it is later. I think that's what I would say. But then at the same time, I would say, have somebody who's organized as part of the project.

Leah Lemm: Dang. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Thanks for that. How would you describe a day in your life as a creative or a week in your life? Is there anything that looks like regular?

Heid E. Erdrich: No, no. I mean, somebody watching me would notice my bad habits are regular, but there's a lot of just staring into space or looking at stuff, you know, watching videos. There's just like, I think I function a little bit more the way a visual artist does. Like, I need a lot of visual input. I read a lot, but sometimes in big bursts, I'll read a huge stack of books, of poems, new books, or whatever. And then when I'm looking for my own thing, I don't really look at others’ poetry, because I need to catch my own thing. You know, it might look like a lot of domestic projects. I really love having a home and taking care of it. After all of these years, I couldn't really do it when I was working too much. So yeah, it might look like that. It might look like, you know, staring at the lake, at the big lake, which is one of the best places for me to see what I'm doing, just looking out at the big lake. Conversations. What I do have this space that I come to every day. I don't always sit down and write in it, but it's my spot. So I mean, sometimes I'm writing a poem into a text to myself that I can never find it again.

Leah Lemm: You mentioned bad habits? Oh, yeah. Do you have a best bad habit?

Heid E. Erdrich: Oh my gosh, no, I drink coffee, and I believe coffee is good for us. You know? I mean, it's like, they would never give me ADHD medicine. So the coffee is it for me, and I feel strongly about the important of the [Ojbiwemowin], and especially the [Ojibwemowin] part of it, although I drink it without kiki sometimes too. Yeah, yeah, that's one of them. A best worst habit is probably just letting myself just not talk to people sometimes, like, sorry, I'm not gonna pick up this phone call. I'm not gonna be on time for the Zoom until I finish the thought, you know, because my thoughts can, oh, they take a long time sometimes.

Leah Lemm: That's a good lesson, too, I think, because, you know, the time and the talking in modern society, right? We're all so accessible to one another that it's a little unnatural to be so connected and so available and accessible that maybe there is, you know, something to be said, less bad, maybe best bad habit just being a little less accessible, especially right at a certain time.

Heid E. Erdrich: I appreciate that. Actually, whenever anybody can tell an artist that it's fine for them to be alone, it's a huge gift to them.

Leah Lemm: Yeah, and you mentioned synchronicities before, being in the collaboration process. Do you have like, a recollection of a favorite synchronicity that happened, or favorite like coming together of minds?

Heid E. Erdrich: Oh, I feel like I've told this one before, but it's, it is my favorite. It's the artist Andrea Carlson, Grand Portage descendant, yeah, just a wonderful friend of mine. One time, I was reading poems to try and help me remember something, and I was reading a particular poem, and Andrea texted me and said, what you doing? I said, Oh, I'm reading this poem about the pink dolphins tonight. While I was going to get the link to send it to her, she sent me a picture of a painting of a pink dolphin that she was working on. And I was like, yes, that's the vibe. That's why we can work together and like, what an obscure breaking thing for us to be about river dolphins and, you know, on another continent. So things like that happen, but they're so constant. They're so thick with certain people I work with that it's just they don't stand out. They're just the texture of the thing, like Elizabeth Day, who I hope to get to work with again, filmmaker Elizabeth Day. And when I'm like doing, I did crowdsourcing as a poet laureate. I did these crowdsource poems where I just, you know, ask people to come to me in public events and answer some questions, and then I read back their lines with combined with my lines, which were set and it was just, sometimes it was just so perfect. It all just worked together so well. And it really sounded poetic. And, you know, we all got chills and stuff. And so sometimes it's, it's not just because, you know somebody, you've been working with them. It could be the feeling in the air.

Leah Lemm: You're listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today, I'm chatting with Heid E. Erdrich, author, researcher, educator and curator and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. So when you work on poetry, or writing, do you have a work style? Like, do you do all your research first and then do your work? Or, do you like doodle? Or, how do you even start?

Heid E. Erdrich: Usually, I just sit down at my computer and start and when I have a big project in mind, the titles come first, and I'll put them into different files when I go back in and work on them. Last year, I broke both elbows and a wrist and the other one, so I wasn't able to work the way I wanted to, but to teach my body and my brain to coordinate my wrists and hands and elbows after they've been broken, you have this like, weird thing that they don't want it. This one was hurt so bad that I if I went to pick something up, it would go, No, thank you. So I had to write by hand. And so lately I've been writing by hand, and it's a whole experience that I haven't engaged for a really long time. So that's been wonderful, but, yeah, so like, physically, I look at things, I keep things around me to remember ideas that I just sort of, you know, like, pick them up and imbue them with an idea. You know, have, like, there's this little button happens to say a meme on it. I'm just like, oh, keep this idea in here and put it down, and then, like, pick it up and hope it's still in there. I mean, I have some odd things. I do have one thousand tabs open, you know, on my desktop, and then I go back in there and try to remember what it was. I’m saving about 1000 screenshots on my phone. So sometimes I have a little trigger like that that I've saved for myself.

Leah Lemm: Yeah, back to injury. Just as a note, we had a beader on, person who did bead work who had an injury to her wrist, I believe, who was beading as a part of, you know, getting back to healing. Do you find that, like writing helped heal?

Heid E. Erdrich: Yeah, it really helped. Because at first I decided to write on my students’ papers. I went out to Montana to teach for five months, and I was like, how am I going to do this? I've been typing, and it was just so painful with my, you know, few little fingers and a cast and, you know, everything else. So I started writing by hand, and it really helped, and really worked so physically, just to reconnect my brain, and then eventually the pain really reduced too. If I didn't write for a weekend, my hands would be all stiff and sore. So yeah, so I'm kind of keeping that with me as a you know practice to just try to do more of that.

Leah Lemm: Do you feel like there's a different connection to your writing, like your brain wiring connection, when you hand write versus type?

Heid E. Erdrich: Yeah, there's a little bit more of a flow to it. I tend not to think about the page as much, how something's going to look on the page when I'm handwriting it. My handwriting is not great, and I move pretty quickly when I'm writing longhand, so sometimes I don't remember what I wrote, and I have to go back to it. And then it's a challenge to, like, earn, earn the wording back. It's, it's a craft challenge, and I really appreciate it. I do think it's a little different. You know, I don't keep drafts of my electronic files, like I don't have like, version one, version two, version three, or rarely do like, occasionally I'll keep one draft whatever is lost. But in handwriting, it's not lost. So you have multiple versions of it, if you don't toss it. That will be interesting this year to look back at some of these handwritten things after I've typed them up and the deep edit stage.

Leah Lemm: Got it. Well, Heid, I think I'm gonna ask a tough one here, speaking of versions, how do you know when a piece is done?

Heid E. Erdrich: When it's due.

Leah Lemm: When it's due? I love it. Just have a due date.

Heid E. Erdrich: That's it. Ship it. I occasionally have written something where I just whipped it off, and I'm like, you know what? I am not going back in this one again, I feel really good about where it is, and unless somebody forces me to, not gonna. So who asked for a poem for publication? You get this one. And I don't want to look back.

Leah Lemm: I know some poets that they go up to read their fully published book, and they're like, I'm gonna change his word.

Heid E. Erdrich: I'm one of those. Very sad. Yeah, the poem that I turned in last night for a publication, I put draft next to it. I mean, it's, it's going to be produced in a publication form for student writers or younger writers. So I was fine with that, but I put, I just put draft behind the title, because I'm, like, they may never see another, you know, this version again, or it could be completely different, because it was so new. You know, I'd only been working on it a couple months.

Leah Lemm: Great. Well, what other ways do you express yourself?

Heid E. Erdrich: I sing with the ladies’ hand drum. And most of us are writers, so that's kind of fun, that we're all we've all been friends over the years because we're writers and then we formed this group through another writer friend. So, I mean, I used to cook a lot. I don't cook as much as I did. A garden. I guess those are the things that don't necessarily show up in my vitae.

Leah Lemm: Wonderful. Well, as kind of a final question, what would you recommend to up and coming writers just who want to have a lasting career in the creative arts?

Heid E. Erdrich: It's really important to meet other writers and to spend time with them and get to know what projects they're working on that are collaborative. You know, editing, literacy projects. It's hard because you don't necessarily think of yourself as a social person when you're a person who does creative work, because you need so much time alone, but at the same time, you really do need to establish those relationships. And having a book group is great. Having a writing group is great. Those things all will expand your work.

Leah Lemm: That was Heid E. Erdrich chatting with me about many things, including her collaborative process and the importance of time alone. Thank you so much, Heid, fellow coffee drinker, for letting us get a glimpse into your life and creativity. I'm Leah Lemm. Miigwetch for listening. Giga-waabamin. You're listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.