DENISE LOW INTERVIEWS KS. POET LAUREATE WYATT TOWNLEY

The Kansas Humanities Council announced Wyatt Townley as the fourth Poet Laureate of Kansas on May 2. She will serve a two-year term as advocate for literary arts across the state. Her most recent book of poetry, The Afterlives of Trees (Woodley, 2012), won a Kansas Notable Book Award. Townley is a yoga teacher and dancer as well as a poet. She is author of Kansas City Ballet: The First Fifty Years (Kansas City Star Books, 2007). Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate 2009-11, interviews Townley about poetry and how it relates to yoga and dance.

Denise Low: Yoga, dance, and poetry all fit organic forms into set order. In what way(s) do you see your poems like dance steps or poses?

Wyatt Townley: Steps and poses.... Neither. I’m anti-pose. But dance and yoga come into play all the time in my poetry. The problems in composition are similar. What is inevitable and organic that flows from the last motion—or word—to the next one? That’s a very basic place to start. In poetry, just as in choreography, the next word must be born out of the word before it. There’s an inevitability there—which is not the same as predictability—that creates flow and motion. From another angle, dancers and yogis are always seeking to move beyond the edges of the body into space. The poem, too, has to get off the page. It can’t just lie there. Its instincts are kinetic.
Denise Low: How is verse different from art forms that use the body?
Wyatt Townley: Books last longer than bodies. When I was a kid, I thought that poetry and dance were at opposite ends of the spectrum—poetry arguably the most refined of the verbal arts, dance arguably the most refined of the nonverbal. Pursuing them both felt like straddling two worlds, doing the splits! I don’t think that anymore. The body is a poem, writing itself with every breath. And poems affect us physically, a la Dickinson’s crown chakra opening: “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” These days I’m interested in big-picture connections, not small-picture distinctions.
Denise Low: Your poetry manipulates space in so many ways. In "Skeleton Key," for example, you write "Insert the tailbone/into the sky/turn slowly, unlocking." Are you thinking spatially as you compose?
Wyatt Townley: Partly. For me the poem itself comes out of a sense of spaciousness, something—somewhere—bigger. And as poets we’re trying to translate that expansion to the page—through compression! Another paradox. Part of what we are doing in yoga is expanding time and space. We’re exploring the space between things—between breaths, between heartbeats, between vertebrae, between the eyebrows, and so on. By retraining the breath and slowing it down, we find we can also cover more territory with it; so we get both more time (slower) and more space (deeper). The same thing happens in the poem, through the use of breath and white space—all the little choices one makes down the page in terms of placement, rhythm, sound, punctuation, enjambment, stanza break—either slowing down or speeding up time. So as poets we’re exploring the use of time in terms of space, just as dancers do. The book-length poem I’m working on now, called “Rewriting the Body,” runs with this idea.
Denise Low: How does the sky influence your sense of space?
Wyatt Townley: We think of the sky as above us, but of course we’re in the sky and the sky’s in us. We breathe it in and out, and rearrange it with every step. This is still revelatory to me. I’ve always been fascinated by space, as so many of us Kansans are, with our great view of the stars. My dad was an amateur astronomer and would spend hours setting up his telescope so he could help us understand where we are. I’m still working on that! But you’re right—and I’d never really thought of it in this way—space is a big theme for me, from personal space in and around the body all the way out to the cosmos, micro to macro.
Denise Low: Paul Muldoon has a lovely essay about the moment before a poem comes into being. What is that moment, that tipping point, for you?
Wyatt Townley: It’s an intriguing question, but I’m going to give a practical answer. For me the poem starts with a decision to sit down, the old “Apply the seat of the pants to the chair.” Maybe that’s the distinction between poetry and dance: the poet’s gotta sit down, the dancer’s gotta stand up. It’s a good mix.
Denise Low: Here is one of my favorite poems from The Afterlives of Trees (Woodley):

Tracks by Wyatt Townley

 Follow the children who follow the creek.

Their bright clothes fold into trees

and they’re gone. How you’ve grown—

too slow to keep up, too dogged

to turn back. Forget the list in your pocket.

See what you’ve missed. Deep in the woods

the wind erases the way you came. All paths

lead here. Beside you the tracks of a wild turkey,
 
and earlier, a raccoon retracing its steps.
There a deer paused, perfect disguise,

and here we all are, leaving ourselves

behind. We fold into trees and are gone.
     (copyright Wyatt Townley, reprinted with permission)

More information about Wyatt Townley and the poet laureate program: http://kansashumanities.org/programs/poet-laureate-of-kansas/

CARYN MIRRIAM-GOLDBERG's poem "Landed" mixes whimsy and details of nature

The Poet Laureate of Kansas reads April 25, Wed., at the Lawrence Public Library—see http://www.lawrence.lib.ks.us/  If you miss this springtime reading, check   http://carynmirriamgoldberg.com  for upcoming events. Earlier this spring, she and her husband burned grass as part of the renewal process for prairies. As Poet Laureate, she has brought Kansas writers together as well as state poets laureate from across the country. In 2011, she organized one of the few national gatherings of poets laureate, from Rhode Island, Alaska, Texas, and Alabama, as well as Midwestern states. She recently edited a collection of 150 poems by Kansas poets to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of Kansas, Begin Again. She has organized a dozen group readings from this anthology. She has more projects brewing.

In addition to advocacy for writing, she is herself a fine poet. This title poem for the collection Landed (2009) shows her balance of whimsy and observation. She walks the line of sentiment, as she writes a celebratory nature poem. She focuses on specific details, like a field guide, but her language creates the aesthetic. The curve of a crow’s feather, “where it bows,” echoes the “long crescent” of her partner’s body later in the poem. Her personal reflection complicates the descriptive details also, putting them into a larger context. She writes, “whatever we think of love is just the aerial view,” and likewise this poem gives us a new way to view the cedars, grass, wind, and stories about love.

Landed

Here everything is a list of its details:
the surface of crow feather where it bows,
or echo of whippoorwill through the closed window
over the bed. The chiggers and the slow-creeping
cedar trees, milkweed webbed with spittlebug,
and the grass above and below ground,
mirroring out from a single point
of root and longing.
I'm landed here, in the center of something
not my own doing, and although I keep thinking
I'm alone, I'm dying, I'm afraid,
I'm making all that up.
The man I love is coming out of the woods,
the long crescent of his body closer, bowing to touch
something, say its name.
When he stands back up, he walks slowly to show me
whatever we think of love is just the aerial view
that tells you nothing compared to the soft green stems
that curl and fall with the wind, compared to how each step
across the grass is a form of falling
out of and into what losses make life possible.
The quick flashes, like the sun balancing
on the lip of the horizon right before
it goes out, like that moment the field golds
everything opaque, like how love strips us
out of the stories we have for love.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the 2009-2012 Poet Laureate of Kansas, and a long-time transformative language artist. She is a poet, fiction and non-fiction writer, teacher, mentor, and facilitator. Founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College (where she teaches), and facilitator of Brave Voice workshops.  Forthcoming books are The Divorce Girl, a novel of art and soul, from Ice Cube Books and Needle in the Bone: How a Holocaust Survivor and Polish Resistance Fighter Beat the Odds and Found Friendship, from Potomac Press. Other books are Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems, editor, 2011,Woodley Memorial Press; An Endless Skyway: Poetry from the State Poets Laureate, co-editor with Marilyn L. Taylor, Denise Low and Walter Bargen, Ice Cube Books;  Landed, poetry, Mammoth Publications; The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community & Coming Home to the Body, Ice Cube Books; and The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader, co-editor with Janet Tallman, Ice Cube Books. More information is at her website http://carynmirriamgoldberg.com/bio/  

AD ASTRA POETRY PROJECT #16 CARYN MIRRIAM-GOLDBERG (1959- )

One of the most active poets in Kansas is Lawrencian Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. She conducts writing workshops and readings across the state. She teaches poetry to journal keepers, songwriters, lower-income youth and adults, and cancer survivors. As a professor in a low-residency college, she reaches students across the nation. Further, she is a founder of the transformative language arts curriculum, which promotes spoken and sung language as “a tool for personal and community transformation.” She has a global perspective on poem-making.

Mirriam-Goldberg’s verse plumbs the depths of consciousness. In “Spring Song” she situates the poem between waking and dream states. The poem also hovers between night and day; between winter and summer; and between imagination and reality. Sky, gravity, trees, birds, and stones are elements of nature—and so also are moments like sudden waking from a dream and love. The ending image of a stone, solid yet carrying an internal crack for years, is yet another paradox. What seems solid may shatter at any moment. This is fertile ground for the poet.

SPRING SONG

What it is to wake at night not watered down
in overdrawn voices from the day, to see the space
and not figure in the space, to fall backwards
in a dream and realize it’s a dream?

What waits, wet as fire, on the end of the line?
The rushing of wings, the billowing of thunderheads,
the crashing of car into lamp post, the slivering of bark
from tree, the waking suddenly for no reason?

Meanwhile, insects reproduce themselves like breath,
birds loosen the sky with flight,
stratus clouds streak across the moon,
kisses stop, and stones break apart
so easily that it’s clear they’ve been cracked inside
for a long time. Each life a transference of water.
Each act just a way to move light around.

Even knowing this, why can’t the heart stop asking?

Education: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg was raised in Brooklyn and Manalapan, New Jersey. She came to the Midwest to attend the University of Missouri (B.A. History, 1985) and the University of Kansas (M.A. in Creative Writing 1988 and Ph.D. in English, 1992).

Career: Mirriam-Goldberg’s books of poetry are Lot’s Wife (Woodley 2000); Animals in the House (Woodley 2004) and Reading the Body (Mammoth 2004). Since 1996 she has been a professor at Goddard College in Vermont, working with the Individualized MA program. She founded and coordinated the Transformative Language Arts conference and Goddard’s degree emphasis. She also has written books for teenagers, Write Where You Are and a biography of Sandra Cisneros. Her blog is carynmirriamgoldberg@blogspot.com. Her website is http://www.writewhereyouare.org/ .
______________________________________________________ © 2008 Denise Low, AAPP16 © 2006, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg “Spring Song,” Animals in the House, Woodley.

AD ASTRA POETRY PROJECT #13:

Patricia Traxler (1944 - )


Writing is Patricia Traxler’s life. Besides being a fine, fine poet herself, she has developed writing programs for the hearing-impaired, for seniors, for victims of domestic violence, and for mental health and stroke patients. And she founded the Salina poetry reading series. To all of these tasks, she brings the skills of a well-schooled, sophisticated versifier. She studied with Nobel winner Seamus Heaney, and she has national book publications. However, in an interview, Traxler avers that her “most important and rewarding work” is with disenfranchised populations. She grew up in San Diego, and since the late 1970s, she has lived in her grandparents’ house in Salina.

Reading Traxler’s work is like having intimate conversations with a narrator much like herself. She draws on her own Irish Catholic–and also Native—background, as well as her perspective as a woman. Her poems are spare stories that sometimes include romantic details. Often, she animates poems with the drama of relationships.

In “Why She Waits,” the sky and the earth are husband and wife. Their tension arises from anticipation. Despite the “plain and faithful” landscape of late winter, even the drab and common starlings understand that renewal is about to occur. The “nightly” return of sky to earth is not a vivid kindling of male and female, but rather a routine of their relationship. Amidst this humdrum scene, however, a larger drama will unfold as snow melts into soil, and a new season is about to begin. The entire poem answers the title question about the “wife’s” patience.

WHY SHE WAITS

Another night: late winter falling
on the prairie like a nightly husband
no longer impassioned but knowing his rights
and duties

The snow no longer quite conceals
what for months has gone
unnoticed: the land, plain
and faithful beneath it
holding out

for something no one can describe, something
the starlings whisper about, evenings
in the melting snow, something
they look for
in the cold winter grass.

Education: Patricia Traxler attended schools in California. She completed studies for the BA from San Diego State University. She studied at Radcliffe College as a Bunting post-doctoral fellow.
Career: Traxler’s books include: Blood Calendar (Morrow 1975); The Glass Woman (Hanging Loose 1983); Forbidden Words (University of Missouri 1994); and the novel Blood (St. Martin’s Press, 2001/02). She has been poet-in-residence at the Thurber House (Ohio), Hugo poet at the University of Montana, and a Kansas Arts Commission fellow.
______________________________________________________________
© 2008 Denise Low, AAPP13. © 1983. Patricia Traxler, “Why She Waits ,” Hanging Loose Press. @ 2008 Patricia Traxler, photograph.

AD ASTRA POETRY PROJECT #6

JONATHAN HOLDEN (1941 - )

Jonathan Holden, first Kansas poet laureate, has lived in Manhattan, Kansas, since 1978. He is distinguished professor at Kansas State University. I first met Holden when I taught at K-State briefly in the 1970s, and he was generous to many poets and students. He has influenced the direction of American poetry—through essays and example—by insisting that informal, domestic moments are high art.

Holden is passionate about poetry, both as critic and poem-maker. His brilliance manifests in his performances as well as writings. He can quote entire poems by major American and British poets for hours. He masters fields of knowledge—mathematics, tennis, U.S. politics, Bach—and finds ways to use them in everyday situations.

This poem, about apparently ordinary sights, comments upon instinctive knowledge. It mimics the perfect balance that baseball players and sparrows both must practice in order to survive. The lines shift in rhythm, to imitate birds totter and regain balance. Holden uses a passel of rich descriptive verbs, like “pirouette” and “stab,” to describe reflexive movements of the birds and players. These contrast to hesitations—reflection and philosophy—in the poem. Instinct keeps us alive, even when in the dark of night.

NIGHT GAME

These infielders are definite

as sparrows at work.

Split that seed with one peck

or starve.

There is no minor league

for birds. There is

exactly one way

to pirouette into a double play

perfectly. The birds

don’t dare reflect on what

they do, each hop, each stab and

scramble through the air into the

catch of the sycamore’s

top twigs

is a necessity,

absolute. To stay alive

out in the field, you must be

an authority on parabolas

and fear philosophy.

Education: Holden grew up in rural Morristown, New Jersey, described in his memoirs Guns & Boyhood in America and Mama’s Boys. His college degrees, all in English, are from Oberlin (BA 1963), San Francisco State College (MA 1970), and University of Colorado (PhD1974).

Career: This poet has published twenty books of poetry, essays, memoirs, and a novel. Knowing is his most current book of poetry (University of Arkansas Press 2000). He is poet-in-residence and University Distinguished Professor at Kansas State University. He has won awards from the National Arts Endowment, University of Missouri Press, the Associated Writing Programs, and others. Midwest Quarterly devoted the summer 2007 issue to him. His website is www.jonathanholden.com .

_________________________________________________________________________________________
© 2007 Denise Low, AAPP6. © 1997 “Night Game,” Jonathan Holden, from Ur-Math, State St. Press © 2005 photo by Greg German. A downloadable version is available for non-commercial use from www.kansaspoets.com

Lawrence Journal World: An Online Chat

This July 5, 2007, chat took place 1:30-2 pm. This is available online through the Lawrence J-W site: http://www2.ljworld.com/chats/2007/jul/05/denise_low/

Lawrence writer Denise Low assumes her post as Kansas Poet Laureate on July 1. The interim dean of the College of Humanities and Arts at Haskell Indian Nations University will take questions about her new role: supporting other Kansas writers and developing an appreciation for the writing and reading of poetry. M0derator: Hi, everybody. Denise is here to answer your questions about her position of poet laureate, and about poetry in general. I'm Terry Rombeck, a features reporter here at the J-W, and I'll moderate today's chat.

Denise Low: Hi, and I appreciate the J-W's sponsorship of this e-chat about poetry and the laureate position.

Moderator: First off, please tell us a little about the poet laureate program.

Denise Low: Sure. 37 states have a poet laureate, as well as the U.S., which changed the U.S. Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress to a Poet Laureate Consultant in 1986. Kansas began its poet laureate position in 2005. Jonathan Holden is the first poet laureate. He established a great website http://www.kansaspoets.com/ and held teleconference Shoptalk programs throughout his tenure. I plan to continue the website. In addition, I will provide an electronic page about a Kansas poet biweekly, to be sent to Kansas libraries and other places. I'll also post this on my blog, http://deniselow.blogspot.com/. These may be used for educational purposes. Then we'll publish this, through the Washburn Center for Kansas Studies. Tom Averill nominated me for this position, and more information is on the Kansas Arts Commission website.

nativekansan: Hi, Denise, First, congratulations about becoming the Poet Laureate. I'm a poet and have a pile of poems ready to send off for possible publication -- but am clueless about where they should be sent. Are you, in the future, possibly going to run seminars on poetry writing, including publication?

Denise Low: Thanks for your good wishes. Coming up in the near future, August 11, 9:30 at the Lawrence Public Library, I will be the guest for an open meeting of the Kansas Authors Club. I will be happy to address this question in more detail then. I have held such discussions in the past and attended many. The best quick advice is to look in a recent copy of Writers Digest-Poetry (or whatever your genre). They have very, very good lists of how to prepare a manuscript, places to send work, agents, etc. They do a great job. My own advice beyond what they tell you is: Get involved in a writers' group Take a class through the Art Center, KU, or wherever. Try publishing in local organizations--the LJ-World, for example, publishes poetry. My first publication was a newsletter.

mhb: What are some ways that libraries can help promote an appreciation for poetry?

Denise Low: Excellent question, and I think I know who this is... how about the River City Bookfair, Oct. 14, I believe (that weekend anyway--stay posted), where many area writers including Jo McDougall, Barry Barnes, and myself, and many more will present free discussions of writing and reading. I noticed the Lawrence library at one time had open mics for high school students. That's a great idea. I really am impressed with the number of contemporary poetry books in the library, but I'd like to see more local writers' works. And how about a nook for Kansas literary journals? First Intensity, Midwest Quarterly, Cottonwood, and others?
jniccum: Area musicians and filmmakers have to constantly defend the fact that they're from Kansas. Does the same thing happens to you within the poetry community?
Denise Low: Oh boy yes. I cross the river to KC even, and I'm bucolic. I have come to appreciate that my regional dialect is different from the mainstream one, my aesthetic is different, and my reasons for writing are different. My experiences are not in the national memory bank, either: most Americans--like 80% or more--live within 100 miles of an ocean coast. So when I write about prairie burning, it's very abstract to folks outside the area. Wes Jackson has a very nice riff in Altars of Unhewn Stones about how urban Americans LEFT the rural life (1900 American was 90% rural; now less than 10% of America is rural), so the old, discarded place is the Midwest, while the urban coastal area is the Promised Land.

monkeywrench: you mention poetry discussions. what about workshops/clinics?

Denise Low: Conferences are a great learning experience, and also any workshop or clinic you can find. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg does great ones, including one with Kelley Hunt. Her website is http://www.writewhereyouare.com/. Also, Gov. Sibelius has initiated a state-wide book fair, to be in Wichita this fall, also. I'm not good at remembering dates, but I have these events posted on my blog. My former mentor Carolyn Doty, a novelist, used to say it takes 10 years to learn how to write a novel. I'd say the same is true for a book of poetry. However, attendance at workshops, classes, and other instructive situations will shorten that time. In short, yes, there is some talent involved, but also writing poetry is a lot about a craft, which can be learned.
Moderator: I know you're starting a resource for introducing people to Kansas poets. Are there other books or resources out there you would suggest for reading Kansas poets' work?
Denise Low: The best resource right now is the index of poets, and their books, at http://www.kansaspoets.com/. also, Washburn is sponsoring a Kansas Literary Map, which comes up if you Google that title. And George Laughead at the Kansas blue skyways site has a great index of poems. Right now, the best resources are online! I edited several anthologies of Kansas poets in the 70s and 80s, respectively, but these are long out of print. Folks talk about how hard it is to sell poetry, but both of these anthologies went through several printings, and both sold out. The Ad Astra Poetry Project that I am working on should be a great new resource. Also, the Washburn Center for Kansas Studies has some relevant publications. Woodley Press at Washburn publishes Kansas area or Kansas-related writers, including poets.

Moderator: That does it for today's chat. Thanks for all your questions and thanks, Denise, for coming in to answer them. Good luck to you as your start your two-year appointment.
Denise Low: I appreciate your interest. This is an interesting time for journalism--for example the Chicago Tribune has shifted much of its book review section to online. The video clips, audio clips, interactive chats, and almost unlimited archival space online are changing how we get news and interact with cultural news. This was fun!

KSNT Poet Laureate Appearance

I told my Mon. 3 pm class how odd life is, that a shy person like myself, the quiet girl who always sat in the back, ends up in front of cameras and audiences. Somehow, the Kansas Arts Commission arranged my appearance on an 11 am tv magazine show in Topeka.

It was fun to see the set-up. The weather man really does wave around and point to a blank wall. The sound room somehow coordinates with the weather man and anchor to flash , no roll, video in coordination with the telepromter. There were two teleprompters. Neither had answers for me.

Also, the weatherman and anchor Jiou-Jiou Shen (sp?) were performers more than I expected. Yes, they spoke clearly, quickly, and with clean accents. But also they exaggerated their animation just a bit--not to the point of silent movie actors, but on the same continuum. I tried to amp up my own facial expressions a bit and act excited. I do not show outward emotions easily.

I answered questions like "How did it make you feel to be chosen poet laureate?" Boy, my feelings are a deep mystery to me, a collection of surges that change and mutate in memory each day. I invented something that I hoped sounded okay. I did get to thank Tom Averill for nominating me. I tried to express appreciation to Jonathan Holden and Greg German for all they have done. I described the position, what I hope to do, and then, whew, four of my five minutes of fame was up! Ms. Shen didn't look at her watch once, and she had the 240 seconds figured out exactly.

Ad Astra Poetry Journal 11.30.06

Today is one of those days when I just feel overwhelmed. Flat tire this morning. Snow & icy roads. Lots to do at work.

This early morning I worked a few hours on revising a chapter for a book on Native writers who are underappreciated. My piece is on the poetry of Heid Erdrich, who has two books, Fishing for Myth and The Mother's Tongue. She's Ojibwe of mixed German and French ancestry as well. Her poetry addresses mixed heritage life, urban Indian life, nature and the body, women's issues. All these, plus her skill and magic, make her worthy of more recognition. I'm shocked to find her two books have almost no reviews--just a few online mentions through the Minnesota arts site and a link through the Native American writer home page http://www.hanksville.org/storytellers/HErdrich/. So I'm glad to be working on this, but early morning isn't long enough to finish the project today. There is so much critical work to be done for Midwestern writers and poets.

Ad Astra 2: Laureate Miscellany

Announcement of the poet laureate position--even though I won't move into it officially until July 2007--has been more of a change than I expected. For the most part, my work life does not center on teaching creative writing. Occasionally through the years, I have been able to teach one class a year. It's been three years now since I last taught it. My colleague Trish Reeves is a wonderful poet--winner of NEA fellowship and Cleveland Poetry Center Award for her first book--and she is a great teacher. So my own writing and public activities are usually outside Haskell Indian Nations University. Many folks there just do not realize my involvement, so it's been like exposing a double life in a way. This most private art form, lyrical expressions of feelings and thoughts, is also paradoxically public. After reading, I often feel like I've turned my self inside out and feel very vulnerable. That feeling is exaggerated now.

I feel more pressure to perform well and write well. Of course I am the same person and poet I was before the announcement! I am quite mortal.

Another miscellaneous thought--this position is so unique, with no analogous position for other writers or occupations--that few people seem jealous of me. I keep telling well wishers there should be laureates for other occupations!

And I am so touched by letters of congratulations that appear in the mail from friends, neighbors, the Lied Center, my state legislators, and others. I did not expect this level of public scrutiny!

One of my favorite stories of myself is years ago after publishing one of the very first things, I went to the Spencer Research Library to find a review of it. As I signed in, the librarian asked if I was THE Denise Low. I puffed up and said yes. My children were with me and were impressed. When the librarian brought out the magazine with the review, it turned out to be somewhat (okay pretty much so) negative! I deflated pretty quickly. So the laureate-ness is a nice moment among a spectrum of many many kinds of moments.

Denise Low's Ad Astra Poetry Blog

First, I am grateful for the honor of being selected for the next poet laureate of Kansas by the Kansas Arts Commission and Gov. Sibelius. Jonathan Holden is the first Kansas Poet Laureate, and his term runs until July, 2007. He has found wonderful ways to inaugurate this role, including a website, http://www.kansaspoets.com/ , and tel-net discussions of poetry with Kansas poets. More information is at http://arts.state.ks.us/

More information about my books can be found at http://www.mammothpublications.com/ .

To start, I want to post some of my writings in a serialized form for this blog, starting with this first essay from Words of a Prarie Alchemist. The print-text version is available from Steve Semken: http://www.icecubepress.com/

In this essay I try to express how important stories are to responsible connection to the environment. Do let me know what you think.


__________________________________________________________


American Indian Geography and Literature: Considerations for Writers
by Denise Low
copyright 2006


American Indian people know about survival, and one of their most important tools is literature. The transmission of memorized texts, and sometimes glyphic texts, from one generation to the next sustains cultural identity. One essential strategy of Native storytellers is linking narratives to specific sites. Through stories, Native inhabitants can associate a landscape with moral behavior; history; community identity; and “myth”—the connection between human and spiritual realms. Indigenous Americans continue to preserve literary accounts, and even some languages, after more than five-hundred years of contact with European, African, and other cultures. This success is hard to ignore.

Indigenous American culture groups have distinct categories of literature, including types of narratives. Anthropologist Keith Basso, who works with Western Apache people of Cibque, Arizona, studies their literary genres. He lived with a community family, learned the language, and sustained his dialogue with elders for many years. One of my students at Haskell Indian Nations University was a member of his host family, and she respected his work. Over the years, Basso came to understand that rather than poetry, fiction and drama, of the western European tradition, Apache people first sort language presentations into three types: ordinary talk, prayer, and literature (“narratives”). They further subdivide literature into sacred accounts (“myths”), historic tales, present day sagas, and gossip.

Stories of the second type, about history, always correlate with geography. Basso learned that Western Apache historical accounts further conjoin landmarks with moral lessons: “Historical tales focus on persons who suffer misfortune as the consequence of actions that violate Apache standards for acceptable social behavior.” These tales are linked to places “by an opening and closing line that identifies a place-name where the events in the narrative occurred.” Thus, the places become affixed to the morality tales, in part because of the titles. Landscape is a compendium of teachings....

One such story appears in Diné poet Luci Tapahonso’s works, and in addition to geographical information, it reinforces the “special” knowledge that gives her nation a distinct historic identity. “Just Past Shiprock” connects a New Mexico place to a tragic tale. The title itself is a location, and then the narrator of the poem continues to give more detailed directions:

…there were flat mesas, gentle sandhills, and a few houses scattered at distances. Mary pointed to a mesa as we rounded a curve and asked, “See those rocks at the bottom?” We stopped playing and moved around her to listen. The question was the opening for a story.

What would be a casual remark to most travelers here is a signal to the Diné children to stop and prepare for a story, similar to the Western Apache formula for the opening of a historical tale. The narrator “Mary’s” comment is strong enough to stop a group of noisy children and get their attention. “Mary” then continues to describe the rocks’ color and texture as well as location:
The rocks she pointed at were midway between the ground and the top of the rock pile. The mesa loomed behind, smooth and deep ochre. The rocks were on the shaded side of the mesa.

This much description of geologic formations would not be necessary unless the storyteller expected the listeners to remember the place. Only after the setting is clear does the narrator of the story, tell about a young couple that lost a baby and buried her under the same rocks that the children see from the road. “Mary” finishes the story within the story with a final emphasis on the place: “Those rocks might look like any others, but they’re special.” This sense of “special” is understated here, but it creates an emphasis for the children to remember both location and its human dimension. It emphasizes the site’s role in tribal history.

At the end of Tapahonso’s “Just Past Shiprock,” the narrator refers obliquely to non- Diné people’s dismissal of the desert-like region and concludes “This land that may seem arid and forlorn to the newcomer is full of stories which hold the sprits of the people, those who live here today and those who lived centuries and other worlds ago.” Again, like Western Apache texts, time is fused with a place through the agency of a narrative account. Tapahonso consciously translates a Diné genre of place-stories, about a land “full of stories,” into English. Loss of a child is tragic, so this is a lesson in grief and recovery from grief as well, and the assertion that no life is forgotten. Tapahonso’s story is one example of how use of landmarks creates a memorable historic text....[to be continued]