Speak to Me Words

Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry

Dean Rader, Janice Gould

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN:
  9780816523498
  9780816523481
• eBook ISBN:
  9780816543519
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Although American Indian poetry is widely read and discussed, few resources have been available that focus on it critically. This book is the first collection of essays on the genre, bringing poetry out from under the shadow of fiction in the study of Native American literature.

Speak to Me Words is a stimulating blend of classic articles and original pieces that reflect the energy of modern American Indian literary studies. Highlighting various aspects of poetry written by American Indians since the 1960s, it is a wide-ranging collection that balances the insights of Natives and non-Natives, men and women, old and new voices. Included here are such landmark articles as "Answering the Deer" by Paula Gunn Allen, "Herbs of Healing" by Carter Revard, and "Song, Poetry and Language—Expression and Perception" by Simon Ortiz—all pieces that have shaped how we think about Native poetry. Among the contributions appearing for the first time are Elaine Jahner writing on Paula Gunn Allen's use of formal structures; Robert Nelson addressing pan-Indian tropes of emergence, survival, return, and renewal; and Janet McAdams focusing on Carter Revard's "angled mirrors." Although many Native writers may disregard distinctions between genres, together these writings help readers see the difference between American Indian poetry and other forms of Native literature.

These essays are as broad, encompassing, and provocative as Native poetry itself, branching off from and weaving back into one another. In showing how American Indian poetry redefines our social order and articulates how Indian communities think about themselves, these writers establish a new foundation for the study—and enjoyment—of this vital art.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Generations and Emanations
• Poems as Maps in American Indian Women’s Writing
• Situating American Indian Poetry: Place, Community, and the Question of Genre
• Daydreaming Primal Space: Cherokee Aesthetics as Habits of Being
• Beloved Woman Returns: The Doubleweaving of Homeland and Identity in the Poetry of Marilou Awiakta
• The Power and Presence of Native Oral Storytelling Traditions in the Poetry of Marilou Awiakta, Kimberly Blaeser, and Marilyn Dumont
• Ain’t Seen You Since: Dissent among Female Relatives in American Indian Women’s Poetry
• The Epic Lyric: Genre and Contemporary American Indian Poetry
• Answering the Deer: Genocide and Continuance in the Poetry of American Indian Women
• The Style of the Times in Paula Gunn Allen’s Poetry
• Herbs of Healing: American Values in American Indian Literature
• Carter Revard’s Angled Mirrors
• “Dawn / Is a Good Word”: Naming an Emergent Motif of Contemporary Native American Poetry
• Call Me Brother: Two-Spiritness, the Erotic, and Mixedblood Identity as Sites of Sovereignty and Resistance in Gregory Scofield’s Poetry
• Song/Poetry and Language—Expression and Perception
• Notes
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Source Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Index