The Trickster Riots

In this debut poetry collection, Lakota storyteller Taté Walker steps into the role of a contemporary trickster to continue the purposefully disruptive legacy of a cultural icon: Iktómi, the Spider. The Trickster Riots weaves through the origins of a lost baby queer in love and spiritache to shapeshift into a momma spider exploring what it means to be a good relative, an obliterator of status quo, and a builder of community.

Walker’s provocative wordplay channels Iktómi with sometimes inharmonious examinations of Indigeneity. The poems weaponize (webonize?) the English language against colonial normativity and navigate the responsibilities of an urban Two Spirit writer carrying and empowering the next generations. Buckle up: The Trickster Riots journeys through fury and disaffection, libratic ceremony, and the lightning bolts of a struggling future ancestor.

Taté Walker is a Lakota citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. They are an award-winning Two Spirit storyteller for outlets like “The Nation,” “Everyday Feminism,” “Native Peoples,” “Apartment Therapy,” “Indian Country Today,” and “ANMLY.” They are also featured in several anthologies: Ohíya Walker is a Lakota citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and is also Red Lake Ojibwe and Mvskoke Creek. They are an award-winning 13-year-old nonbinary painter and graphic artist combining contemporary and traditional imagery and mediums.