Nine visits to the mythworld

the long version

"Nearly all of the poems in this volume are qqaygaang, narrative poems set in Haida myth time. One story, "The Names of Their Gambling Sticks," is a qqayaagaang, a story that juxtaposes myth time and historical time and establishes a legendary basis for prerogatives of two Haida families. Each poem creatively enacts a myth in a way that illuminates and celebrates the traditional world of the Haidas and reveals Ghandl's own acute sense of the foibles and great potential of all human beings."--BOOK JACKET.