Anonymous Student Blog Contributions

October 2019 After reading all the poems from the different authors, Gwen Westerman’s “Undivided Interest,” Natalie Diaz's “American Arithmetic,” [and] Leanne Howe's “A Duck’s Tune,” what I got from the poems is how Indigenous knowledge and land [is] becoming lost throughout the generation. I related to the first poem because I am 1/8 Blackfoot and I don’t know anything about my culture I don’t know the history of my lineage. I see my children and my children will ever know what it’s like to be Indigenous. Knowing there are so many who are halve or 1/8th of Indigenous people out there don’t know their culture because the government and schools are still trying to erase that from young Indigenous children. Forgetting your culture and tradition stops the knowledge of storytelling, knowledge of the land, knowledge of past and future teachings of survival of the tribe and where the tribe lands are located. These poems are a reminder if we don’t teach the future generation Indigenous knowledge it will be lost forever if the youth of the future don’t fight.

Reading the poems reminds me about wants to happen to Native and Indigenous lands. Millions of people this summer watched on television the Amazon rainforest burning down for almost three weeks. The Brazilian government didn't even take time to recognize that the Amazon rainforest was burning to the ground and acknowledge the Indigenous people still living in the forest that was burning. Many Indigenous people have lived in the Amazon for centuries; the Amazon is just one example of what's happening to Indigenous land. In Hawaii. "The mountain, called Mauna O Wakea by Native Hawaiians, is the tallest in the islands, and its summit is considered sacred in traditional Hawaiian culture — the place where the sky god, Wakea, met with Papa Hanau Moku, the earth goddess, leading to the creation of the islands" (the New York: Why Native Hawaiians Are Protesting a Telescope 2019, page 11). The poems describe how the land is being misused. The culture in traditional also destroying the scarce areas of Native and Indigenous people and the stories behind them. It's going to take many allies to convince the government to protect Native and Indigenous lands. In Craig Santos Perez’s poem, he explains about Papa meet the sky God, Waka. It's about the Mountain Mauna O Wakea and how the land of the Mountain is sacred. Having a telescope, it's nothing compared to being on top of the Mountain and watching the ancestors in the sky. Having the telescope on top of that

November 2019 The end of the Morrow Thieves was powerful. When the gang decides to raise up and help find the elder Minerva from the residential schools. Even though in the end the elder Minerva dies in a gun battle, but she is honored. Rose and Frenchie pay their respect by cutting off their braids to show empathy. When Minerva died it help the gang realize that saving their culture and tradition is going to help them survive but have hope for the future. Bullet wanted to make a youth program to keep the Cree language alive. After burying Minerva, Rose decides she wants to stand up and help the other in the residential school, and she was hoping that Frenchie would come, but he did not want to leave his father again and feared if he left his father might not make it without him. In the end, Frenchie decided to go with Rose. The rest of the gang joined with them to help free the other at the residential school. The meet other have Cree and nurse that are also helping people in the residential school. During the takedown of the school, Frenchie finds Mig husband Issac. That moment proves that the missing are out there. They all promise to protect each other and their dreams.

“Cut by a paper razor, I watch blood fill a perfectly straight wound on my finger, Denying the swirl of generations before me and the possibility of those held in my dreams. Illusory, the narrow and unyielding course fills in red, then overflows into a galaxy where Blood carries stories of our origins from beyond the stars”

—Quantum Theory by Gwen Nell Westerman

I chose this poem because, in the end, many of the halves breed Cree working for the governments where helping the full-blooded Indigenous people in the residential schools. I thought this poem related to the ending well. Represents no matter what blood quantum you are as an Indigenous person you can still fight for your culture and tradition for future survival.

Mountain will destroy the meaning of the story of the island and how it was created. Native Hawaiians way of life, but the animals that live around Mountain will be lost once that Mountain is destroyed, there will be no longer a story or tradition. We always have to prevent sacred land from being destroyed, not just for the present with the future generation.

---

The first thing that I noticed about Layli Long Soldier's poems Obligations 1 and Obligations 2 is the format on the page for both of them. The shape of the poem on the page makes it seem whole somehow, like it all fits together perfectly, not unlike the allusions to basket making in Shapes of Native Non-Fiction. The poem is short and minimalist with its words, but not simple. The poem demands the reader do more than read the words on the page; one must engage with the poem and find the way it fits together in a way that makes the reading more active and less passive. The second poem has a mixture of emotion that is contradictory and yet simultaneously encapsulated in one whole, which is brought together by the line (assuming one would refer to it as such) which reads four times over "the grief". It seems like the actions of the poems are predicated upon the indelible effect of the grief of multiple generations, which must bring together the People and the poem to make each whole.

The introduction to Why Indigenous Literature Matters by Daniel Heath Justice gives a broad picture of the landscape of Indigenous writers and their work, but more specifically the challenges they face. One of the defining aspects of his preface and introduction is the idea of "literary" or "literature" and what those can mean. "Literature," as Justice explains, is a term which has historically been interpreted to mean it has "a particularly elevated kind of expression, one that's invested with significant personal and social capital" (Justice, 16). What stands out to me is the word capital. Commodification is a common theme here with settlers, who want to make capital out of land, animals, people, and art. The implication is that "literature" must be a way to make capital gains, whether social or monetary. Justice then writes, "the reader of literature attains a higher rung on the social ladder"(Justice, 16). The sense that "Indigenous literature" is oxymoronic, which he mentions subsequently, perhaps comes from the fact that this way of defining "literature" inherently excludes Indigenous writers, as they have been largely excluded from access to a societal social ladder at all. Justice argues that literature's "cultural capital" is "embedded in relationships of power"(Justice 20) so it is no surprise that Indigenous literature is often excluded because it would be a way to contain power to confines advantageous for settlers. But it is not just that which sets it apart; it is inherently different from it and therefore is perhaps full of more possibilities; "it doesn't seem much of a stretch to think of our literary traditions are being broadly inclusive of all the ways we embody our stories in the world" (Justice, 23). Literary is not just Western/ European alphabetic writing, it encompasses all stories.

Stories are central to Justice's first essay in his book, entitled "How Do We Learn to Be Human?" The first paragraph reads, "Although we are born into human bodies, it's our teachings-and our stories-that make us human....Our biology is only a very small part of our humanity; the rest is a process of becoming." (Justice, 33) Justice suggests that being human is something we learn to do, not something that is fully realized at birth; it is something we must continuously learn to do and do well. Included in this is the idea that a person is not categorically human and that the uniqueness or indeed superiority of humans is an idea derived from Western Judeo-Christian beliefs. These ideas are centered on the self and one's own place in a hierarchy. Indigenous literature, however, can offer something else, as evidenced by the parts of The Last of the Ofos that he includes in his essay. One quote in particular stands out, in which Thomas laments being the last of his people to speak his language: "'But more hurtful than that was the flash that I had that I would never get to hear it spoke out-loud by anybody other than myownself'" (Justice 50). In contrast to the glorified idea of individualism rampant in Western settler culture, the idea of "myownself" to Thomas is equated with disconnection. And disconnection is destructive to what it means to be human, as Justice asserts when he says that "human experience is rendered through communication with the world" (Justice, 68) and that love "becomes the binding cord that links us to the world" (Justice 69). Connectivity is central to what it is to be human which is not proffered or guaranteed; "Humanity isn't what we are, but rather what we enact-we choose to become human each and every day" (Justice, 70). In other words, being human is about becoming a part of the world, not about distinguishing oneself as separate or superior to it.

---

The reading assignment from Shapes of Native Nonfiction was very interesting and described a lot of things that make Native poetry stand out. It was interesting how it was mentioned in the book, that Native poetry isn’t just the content however it is often discussed only in terms of content. I really liked the example that the book made about the trapped salmon and carrying elderberries in basket and how there could be so many things about them, that aren’t necessarily written in the poem, but that make it complete. It was interesting how the book mentioned that American stories have different values compared to Native literature. I certainly agreed that a lot of American stories are about enemies, wealth, and symbols of threat. The stories of Native storytellers are different in many ways. Something that stood out to me was importance of nature. “The Girl Who Called the Glacier” is a good example of that. As was argued in the book, the setting in the story is not just the stage, it is the participant of the story (SNN, 27). This is certainly something unusual compared to the American stories.

Inevitably, when talking about Native literature the topic of colonization comes up. I think that it is very important that Native writers are not afraid to show violence in their work, and that is exactly what they are doing. The essay by Bojan Louis that is shown in the book is a great example of that (SNN, 10-11). The story is very harsh, yet true. We also looked at the poem “38” by Layli Long Soldier in class that also demonstrates this willingness to talk about violence towards Native tribes.

The Introduction to the “New Poets of Native Nations” underlined that Native poetry is not easy to find for people and often times the work people stop on is by a non-Native person, which is a big misrepresentation of what Native poetry actually is. Overall, the few poems I read so far were quite different and I haven’t read something like that before. I am very interested to read more Native literature and learn more about aspects of their work.

---

These contributions were made by a collection of anonymous students in the class.