Whitman’s
Depiction of the Sand Creek Massacre
Yonnondio-
Walt Whitman said this
Word- which actually means
Lament for the aborigines, an Iroquois term-
As if it were a name
That could be called in the twilight
Before the sun went all the way down
Before the wolves began to howl
Before our country became
What it is today.
Walt Whitman, a name
Which actually means
An American Poet who-
in the midst of many destructive
Happenings wrote a great deal-
People still read and write about
Like he was some prophet or
Perv or perhaps just like
The rest of us.
Walt Whitman, if you knew
What was happening- the raids, the
Violence, the complete disregard
For people who, like you, were human-
Why did you simply say
Yonnondio into the wind
Into the stillness
If you knew what it feels like
To be lost?
Walt Whitman, I don’t
Mean to offend you-
I know that’s impossible seeing
As you’ve been dead for years and years-
But the world and the people in it
Are not only for your objective
Writers’ eyes, and
Yonnondio is not a name.
Walt Whitman, Yonnondio
Is not a song, a poem of itself, a strange tableau of syllables,
Or a limitless ravine, It is not a wailing word
Born for a moment and then blank
And gone and lost forever
Just because you said, or wrote that.
Now, when I google Yonnondio,
You’re the only thing that comes up.
Some white guy that wrote a poem.
This poem is a response to Walt Whitman’s Yonnondio, in which Whitman uses the word yonnondio as a ‘personal name,’ instead of what he calls the “sense of the word,” which is a lament for the aborigines. What struck me the most about my first reading of Whitman’s poem is the indifference the speaker seems to have for an otherwise somber, nostalgic tone one might expect. In the original poem, Whitman opens with an introductory line explaining the title and main subject of the poem, writing, “[The sense of the word is lament for the aborigines. It is an Iroquois term; and has been used for a personal name],” in brackets as shown here. Reading Whitman’s poem reminded me of the fact that white men are mostly responsible for writing our history, abd are largely responsible for the way information has been written and taught to the future generations.
My primary goal for writing this poem was to share the idea that just because someone ‘important’ says something, it doesn’t mean that it’s the full truth, nothing but the truth, so help him, God. Where Whitman shared his perspectives of the Civil War in such urgent detail, he did seem rather indifferent to the terrorism Native Americans faced at the hand of White colonialists. As he did in Yonnondio, Whitman picked a very miniscule part of history, a word characterizing the loss of culture, and made it into a name. Whitman actually changed the meaning of Yonnondio to fit his work, rather than forming a poem around the true meaning and tradition of the word, and what it represents. This type of translation and imitation of culture really brings out the worst in Whitman, I think, because he is being rather selfish in saying in the closing lines, “ A muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne through the air for a moment,/ Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost.” Here he takes this word which has a deeper meaning than simply missing something that you’ve lost, and he says it into the air and it just disappears.
Whitman could have done more with his poem to be a voice to the voiceless communities that have been met with conflict and utter inhumanity. The final lines of my poem are meant to show what happens when history rewrites the past. Instead of finding the meaning of the word when you search Yonnondio, you are met with results about Whalt Whitman’s poems or criticisms of those poems instead of any information on Native American culture. I could be wrong- Whtiman’s poem could have been a way of honoring the term and the people who made it. Whitman could have truly and deeply struggled with the destructive forces driving out innocent people from their homes, but as far as writing about it, I did not see that in his Yonnondio.
We have seen time and time again throughout this semester how contradictory Walt Whitman can be and I believe you are justified in calling him out for his insensitive and contradictory attitude in his poem. What better way to combat a poet than with a poem? Like you said, Whitman should have built this poem around the true meaning of the word rather than form it to his own standard. He constantly tries to connect to his reader and sit within our breast pockets holding us and us holding him, but I find it difficult sometimes to listen to the preaching of this man when he seems to pick and choose whose voices should be heard and which cultures we should praise and despair over. It all comes back to contradiction and the old grey beard was full of it.
First off, I would like to say great poem! It had such a great rhythm to it and really packed a punch. I love how you re-purposed the title of Whitman’s poem to serve as a critical critique of Whitman’s original poem and apparent mistreatment of the original meaning of the word. It’s interesting to see Whitman’s poem grow to a certain status of recognition that it is the first thing that comes up in a google search. My own research led me to conclude that Whitman didn’t care much for Native American populations, but this poem (and a few of his others) led me to believe that did have some sort of warped or misguided appreciation for Native American culture, hence the usage of the word, “Yonnondio”.
I loved this poem. I think you really hit the nail on the head in terms of addressing the misuse of native American words or culture. I think it is a real problem which you speak about very well. I agree with and like how you used Whitman as an example of the “history is written by the victors” phenomenon, which is exclusionary to indigenous communities and often silencing to them. I thought the poem did an amazing job putting Whitman in conversation in a way that I dont think we’ve seen before. It was a very direct critique of what Whitman did knowingly or unknowingly and I felt fresh, personal, relatable, and real. Really awesome job.
Awesome poem — I love options that you so incisively reduce Whitman to here: “perv or / prophet.” What an awesome formulation! I strongly sense the tone of elegy the permeates here as you survey the political landscape in a post-Whitman world. My favorite lines are these:
Why did you simply say
Yonnondio into the wind
Into the stillness
If you knew what it feels like
To be lost?
That final question is so important: at so many moments in the late work, as in his “Dismasted Ship,” and earlier in poems such as “As I Sit and Look Out,” Whitman seemed to be able to translate loss. Here’s the poem’s elegiac tone is clear, but I agree with you that he’s highjacking this cultural idea that is not his own to ultimately cast America itself in an elegiac light, as though the removal and destruction of Indian populations is just some fatalistic prelude to end of American empire. In that sense, the poem is deeply elegiac, but it doesn’t fully understand the object of its elegy. Your poem captures that perfectly. Well done!