Turtle Island

A Poem by Rebecca Dietrich

A Selection from Under the Stars of Turtle Island by Rebecca Dietrich (Wayfarer Book 2025 | Bookstore»

Included in Wayfarer Magazine Issue 42

Photo by Jenelle

My roots run deep in this sacred land.
My ancestors lived and died here,
Long before the White man came.
“Our people met their people 
when they got off the boat,”
As my grandfather used to say.
Yet we were the ones pushed around.
Gatsy was born in Georgia,
Her daughter Mahala in Oklahoma 
And her daughter Buena too.
Grandpa Berry was born in Colorado
And my mother Nancy in Arizona.
She had me here in New Jersey.
When the time comes, I know
My children and their children
Will call Turtle Island home.

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Rebecca Dietrich (she/her) is a Cherokee poet and photographer from Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her debut chapbook Scholar of the Arts and Inhumanities (Finishing Line Press, 2023) won the Literary Titan Book Award for Poetry. She has also published The Last Lullaby (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and On Colonized Ground (Alien Buddha Press, 2024). Dietrich’s poetry has been published in Red Coyote, Havik, Steam Ticket, and elsewhere. She holds a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Holocaust & Genocide Studies from Stockton University. Her next collection, Under the Stars of Turtle Island, is forthcoming from Wayfarer Books, April 2025.