The 12 poems in this collection are about one man's struggle for cultural identity. They describe experiences of loss buffered by sources of cultural strength and adaptation. Hoffmann uses language and imagery that imagines the mythical and historical past of his people, the Tlingit Indians of southeast Alaska. This series of poems are assembled in a way that takes its reader into the author's experiences of historical and cultural loss, confused identity as the result of growing up in two cultures and being half-native, toward catharsis and integrity.