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Submitted by Deidra Suwanee Dees, Ed.D. Douglas “Poncho” Kelley

“I watched the gods of nature dance before the stars just like they danced before my grandmothers ten thousand years before,” Dr. Deidra Suwanee Dees said to the audience at Auburn University on March 28, 2025. “Writing about nature is decolonizing as my husband and I are standing on ancestral land that Creeks were removed from in the 1830s.”

She was invited to speak about her research at the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities by Director Dr. Mark Wilson who invited graduate students, staff, and Auburn University Osher Lifelong Learning Institute members. “Hosting Dr. Dees was an honor and a rewarding opportunity for everyone who participated,” Dr. Wilson said.  “Her perspective on life and poetry is unique and welcomed.”

The Draughon Center walls display the richly framed images of Creek chiefs who were painted by Charles Bird King when the Creek delegation went to Washington to negotiate land treaties in 1825: Micco Menewa, Micco Opothle Yoholo, Micco Selocta, Yoholo Micco, to name a few. Dr. Dees’ husband, Douglas “Poncho” Kelley, who serves as Henehv at Hvsossv Tvllahasse, said, “It felt like our ancestors were looking down from the paintings at us.”

“Auburn invited my wife to speak because they wanted to hear truth. What they read in history books is not always right,” Kelley said. “Some could be hearing the truth for the first time in their existence.”

“Creek leaders in these portraits fought and died to protect our land, every step of the way; did not cower down,” Kelley said. “I imaged they were there listening, like they were hanging out of the picture frames with elbows propped up on the bottom of the frame. They couldn’t get the people in Washington to listen to their words. Menewa’s words fell on deaf ears. But now she can speak their words. Their suffering gets to be heard. They finally got a voice that people can hear.”

“People looked down on me because I’m Indian,” Kelley said. “Some people think we are still not any use to anyone. Everybody should know how they treated us, how bad it was in my lifetime, in Menewa’s lifetime. Indians in our own Tribe need to know what happened to our people.”

Dr. Dees concurs and is teaching this history in Native American Studies at the University of South Alabama. “Micco Opothle Yoholo and Micco Menewa are exemplary leaders that students are learning about,” Dr. Dees said. “Historical evidence demonstrates they tried with all their power to protect Creek land.”

A doctoral candidate in attendance, Sylvan B. Kines, said, “Dr. Dees’ poetic forms that weave along with her political and personal voice expose difficult journeys often lost in more dominant Western-colonial focused narratives. Without… decolonizing literatures, we perpetuate a narrative full of erasure and oppression. Dr. Dees’ poetic pieces radically resist what has been the dominant story.”

Another doctoral candidate in attendance, Desire Ameigh, said, “Dr. Dees’ presentation inspired me to rethink the way that I think about everything from archival research to poetic form. I left feeling inspired and rejuvenated.”

Ameigh said Dr. Dees’ readings struck chords inside of her. “I look forward to sharing these as examples of ways in which Dr. Dees innovates as a political poet interested in decolonizing literature.”

“In a challengingly capacious world,” Ameigh said, “I have the privilege of reading and learning from writers like Dr. Dees whose last stanza of “Fast Horse” is where I hope to land: “give my horse rest in this land I’ve created so we can live the way we were meant to live in balance, peace, and harmony.”