As the end of the semester neared, the realization dawned that, yet again, in a course on Americans writing poetry in America, there are no examples of Indigenous work, no Native American poets to analyze, no Indians to examine through either their poetry or their critical
analysis. Growing up a red girl in a white world, this is something that is very commonplace, and yet it always reminds me how much representation matters. In lieu of a final paper that makes an argument and examines and engages a critical conversation currently underway in modern American poetry, I am thoughtfully reimagining this course to include Indigenous poetry and critical essays by or about Native American authors. As part of this examination, I will explore the different schools of poetry presented in this course with my NDN additions, and I will include commentary on each of the additions with a critical analysis of how they fit within the conventions of each particular school. This is styled after the existing
course, and every effort to maintain the original structure has been made. The overarching theme for this project is simple: We are still here. We might not always look or sound exactly like our white or black poetic counterparts, but our contributions are valid and our voices are valuable.
Week 1 – From Modern to Contemporary, with NDN Inclusion
Critical Introduction:
Taylor, Michael P. “Not Primitive Enough to Be Considered Modern: Ethnographers, Editors, and the Indigenous Poets of the American Indian Magazine”
Poetry:
Arthur C. Parker (#1) vs. Allison Adelle Hedge Coke (#2)
Anonymous Carlisle Student (#3) vs. Linda Legarde Grover (#4)
The erasure of Native Americans from the history of literature in the United States is something that has happened since the literary tradition in this country began. While the Euro-centric view of literature allowed only written examples as representation, Indigenous people have been composing and performing poetry and songs for thousands of years. Still, recognition for those endeavors has been limited until very recently. In “Not Primitive Enough to be Considered Modern,” Michael P. Taylor examines this phenomenon in relation to the February 1917 “Aboriginal” issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, as the issue did not identify any “Aboriginal” authors by name but instead offered Native poems seen through the lens of white modern poets (2016). In this magazine issue, Native poems are not presented in whole, not as translations from a tribal language to English, but as interpretations by ethnographers and famed poets. Though the idea of Native American poetry is celebrated, it is done by showcasing poetry that has been whitewashed of much of its original form and function. Taylor does much to call out this travesty, including pointing to how this tradition continues by showing how poetry anthologies as recently as 2011 highlight only contemporary Native American authors publishing works in the 1970s, as if that is as far back as Native American poetry goes. While not exhaustive as he features the work of only three NDNs, Taylor does this to show “the modernist desire for the primitive and, on the other hand, the contemporaneous Indigenous poets’ desire for poetics that promote greater sociopolitical solidarity, resistance, and survival” (2016). By highlighting three specific poets that produced work during the Modern age, an opportunity to hear Native poetic voices that are not forced through the lens of whiteness is presented. One of Taylor’s featured poets, Arthur C. Parker, is presented for inclusion to this updated course. Parker does not conform to what is commonly ascribed as Modern poetry, as he sticks to rhyme, meter, and syntax that is decidedly traditional. However, in this he follows other poets from underrepresented groups of his time, focusing on the clarity of his message as more important than Modern form.
NDN Inclusion (#1):
Arthur C. Parker
My Race Shall Live Anew
My race yet lives,— it shall not die,
It has a mission to all earth
And will the conqu’ror only heed
My race shall prove its sterling worth.
Unchain the red man, make him free
To struggle and to claim his own!
The world shall find beneath his skin
Staunch human flesh, good blood and bone.
Give freedom to the red man’s mind,
Provide the tools with which to hew,—
To carve his way as other men;
And then my race shall live anew!
NDN Inclusion (#2):
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
America, I Sing Back
for Phil Young, my father, Robert Hedge Coke, Whitman, and Hughes
America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.
Sing back the moment you cherished breath.
Sing you home into yourself and back to reason.
Oh, before America began to sing, I sung her to sleep,
held her cradleboard, wept her into day.
My song gave her creation, prepared her delivery,
held her severed cord beautifully beaded.
My song helped her stand, held her hand for first steps,
nourished her very being, fed her, placed her three sisters strong.
My song comforted her as she battled my reason
broke my long held footing sure, as any child might do.
Lo, as she pushed herself away, forced me to remove myself,
as I cried this country, my song grew roses in each tear’s fall.
My blood veined rivers, painted pipestone quarries
circled canyons, while she made herself maiden fine.
Oh, but here I am, here I am, here, I remain high on each and every peak,
carefully rumbling her great underbelly, prepared to pour forth singing—
and sing again I will, as I have always done.
Never silenced unless in the company of strangers, singing
the stoic face, polite repose, polite, while dancing deep inside, polite
Mother of her world. Sister of myself.
When my song sings aloud again. When I call her back to cradle.
Call her to peer into waters, to behold herself in dark and light,
day and night, call her to sing along, call her to mature, to envision—
Then, she will make herself over. My song will make it so
When she grows far past her self-considered purpose,
I will sing her back, sing her back. I will sing. Oh, I will—I do.
America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.
NDN Inclusion (#3):
Carlisle Indian Industrial School
My Industrial Work
At half past two in the afternoon
You can find me in the twenty-eight room,
About three of four covers deep;
You turn them back and you’ll find me asleep.
And there I lie and patiently wait
For the final exams we have in Room Eight.
When the whistle blows at half past five,
Once more I am up and still alive.
Then I run down and wash my face,
Then comb my hair and I’m ready for grace.
In Fifteen minutes there’s a bugle call,
The troops fall in and the roll is called.
Then out in front the troops all stand,
Saluting the flag with our hats in our hand.
While standing in the wind our hair gets wavy
But, just the same, we right gave, and march to gravy.
Now this may sound like going a fishing,
But this is my only industrial position.
NDN Inclusion (#4):
Everything You Need to Know In Life You’ll Learn in Boarding School
Linda LeGarde Grover
Speak English. Forget the language of your
grandparents. It is dead. Forget their teachings.
They are unGodly and ignorant. Cleanliness is
next to Godliness. Indians are not clean. Your
parents did not teach you proper hygiene. Stay
in line. This is a toothbrush. Hang it on the hook
next to the others. Do not allow the bristles to
touch. This spreads the disease that you bring
to school from your families. Make your bed with
mitered corners. A bed not properly made will be
torn apart. Start over. Remember and be grateful
that boarding school feeds and clothes you. Say
grace before meals. In English. Don’t cry. Crying
never solves anything. Write home once every
month. In English. Tell your parents that you are
doing very well. You’ll never amount to anything.
Make the most of your opportunities. You’ll never
amount to anything. Answer when the teacher
addresses you. In English. If your family insists on
and can provide transportation for you to visit home
in the summer, report to the matron’s office immediately
upon your return. You will be allowed into the
dormitory after you have been sanitized and de-loused.
Busy hands are happy hands. Keep yourself occupied.
You’ll never amount to anything. Books are our friends.
Reading is your key to the world. Forget the language
of your grandparents. It is dead. If you are heard speaking
it you will kneel on a navy bean for one hour. We will ask
if you have learned your lesson. You will answer. In English.
Spare the rod and spoil the child. We will not spare the rod.
We will cut your hair. We will shame you. We will lock you
in the basement. Learn from that. Improve yourself.
You’ll never amount to anything. Speak English.
Hedge Coke (#2) is presented in contrast to Parker (#1) as an example of Contemporary poetry from the 21st century. While Parker does not follow the Modernist conventions, his poem does call out the social structures that were limiting not only his poetry but his very existence. In that context, his use of meter and rhyme are secondary to the content of his poem. Hedge Coke’s poem “America, I Sing Back” follows in the tradition of Langston Hughes, whose poem “I, Too” mirrored and responded to Walt Whitman’s “I hear America Singing”. In “America, I Sing Back,” Hedge Coke assumes a similar method as Parker by conforming to traditional conventions to deliver her passive rebuttal to the idea of a country that “sings” while silencing its Indigenous voices. Like Parker’s poem, “My Industrial Work” (#3) relies on traditional rather than Modernist conventions to present a tongue-in-cheek critique of life at an Indian boarding school. As happened often in publications during this period, this piece is anonymous, forever consigning its writer to being heard without acknowledgement, yet another way that Indigenous voices of this and other eras are silenced. In “Everything You Need to Know in Life You’ll Learn in Boarding School”, Linda LeGarde Grover (#4) answers the anonymous poet with a Contemporary and scathing rebuke of the boarding school experience which hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were subjected to through over 150 years of colonial occupation.
Week 2: Beat Poetry
Critical Introduction:
Moore, David. “The Story Goes its Own Way”: Ortiz, Nationalism, and the Oral Poetics of Power
Vizenor, Gerald. “The Ruins of Representation: Shadow Survivance and the Literature of Dominance”
Poetry:
Simon J. Ortiz – Culture and the Universe , Time as Memory as Story , We Shall Endure
Gerald Vizenor – Shaman Breaks (#5)
In Week 2, a careful examination of the conventions, or lack thereof, of Beat Poetry demonstrates the myriad ways in which the poets of the Beat Generation broke ground and reinvigorated poetry from its more traditional roots. As a group, Beat poets thought of themselves as anti-establishment, and their lifestyles and, by extension, their poetry reflected an attitude that went counter to the mainstream ideas of their day. Most of the poetry from this school is characterized by eschewing the conventional styles of traditional poetry, including rhyme, meter, syntax, and style. Instead, Beat poets packed their entire beings into their poems using free verse and unconventional stylistic techniques, writing about the dark underbelly of humanity in raw and sometimes vulgar ways. David L. Moore, scholar of Native American poetry, discusses how Indigenous poet Simon J. Ortiz “celebrates the multiplicities of language and human discourse” and how this is “in direct contrast with romantic literary nostalgia over the so-called death of the author” (35). While not technically a Beat poet, Ortiz considers many of the acknowledged Beat poets as inspiration, and models many of his poems in the then-unconventional styles for which Beat poets were known.
Gerald Vizenor, Native American poet and literary critic, discusses how postmodernism affords Indigenous writers the chance at survivance in “The Ruins of Representation: Shadow Survivance and the Literature of Dominance”. Vizenor suggests that “Native American Indian literatures have been overburdened with critical interpretations based on structuralism and other social science theories that value incoherent foundational representations of tribal experiences” (12). Vizenor suggests that instead of turning away from the English language, it can instead be used as a way to find tribal liberation and survivance. The idea of using the language of the oppressor to maintain tribal survivance clearly falls in line with the Beat poets ideas of anarchy, or at least challenging the ruling society of the day.
NDN Inclusion (#5):
Shaman Breaks
1
colonists
unearth their wealth
and tease
the old stone man
over the breaks
moths batter
the cold windows
their light
is not our day
leaves abide the seasons
the last crows
smarten the poplars
2
tourists
discover their ruins
and mimic
the old stone woman
over the breaks
nasturtiums
dress the barbed wire
fences down
to the wild sea
magnolias
bloom under a whole moon
words fall apart
3
soldiers
bleach the landscapes
hound the shamans
wild stories
break from the stones
In “Culture and the Universe”, Ortiz uses free verse to convey themes of otherworldliness and infiniteness, both ideas that might intrigue Beat poets. Ortiz utilizes free verse in an almost stream-of-consciousness rendering with “Time as Memory as Story”, like many Beat poets regularly did. With “We Shall Endure”, Ortiz uses free verse in five stanzas, each organized around a different instance of oppression or violence against Indigenous people, including himself. With themes that include the metaphysical, the existential, and resistance, Ortiz’s poems contain many aspects of Beat poetry, and it is not a stretch to say that he composes in the style of the Beat poets. Vizenor’s “Shaman Breaks” is also reminiscent of Beat poetry in free verse without regard to punctuation or capitalization. With a feeling of reaching into the past and into the future, the timelessness of Vizenor’s encounter has a very Beat feel to it.
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