Uqalugaatka

Chelsey Zibell
Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:45:28 PDT

When I began graduate school as an M.A. student, my first idea for a thesis was to prove that stories from the Iñupiaq oral tradition could be considered poetry. In my mind, that would bring these stories to a level I thought they deserved. In my ignorance, I thought that the tradition needed me to validate it. However, I came to the realization that my thoughts indicated a prejudice on my part: these stories didn’t need my validation. I needed to accept them as they are, and also to accept that I was an authoritative reader of these stories. Much of my poetry seeks to retell and interpret these traditional unipchaat. I address questions that have crossed my mind, and questions that I imagine would cross my readers’ minds. My questions arise from my own context as an Iñupiaq, as a Naluaġmiu, and as a Christian. Therefore, the unipchaat need quliaqtuat and uqaluktuat to lean on. But sometimes the condensed form of a poem is not enough context for a non-Iñupiaq reader, or even an Iñupiaq reader. Out of this came several essays for the poetry and the reader to lean on. The late Jimmie Killigivuk of Point Hope said this of traditional stories: “You must always tell two: stories lean against each other. Otherwise the first one is alone and will fall over.” So it is with creative writing. One text may very well be made to stand on its own, but it is never alone in context.