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Author: Luci Tapahonso
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1993-01-01
Total Pages: 110
ISBN-13: 0816513619
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A cycle of poetry and stories by the Navajo writer explores her memories of home in Shiprock, New Mexico; of significant events such as birth, partings, and reunions; and of life with her family. By the author of Seasonal Woman. Simultaneous.
Author: Larry Evers
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1995-03
Total Pages: 116
ISBN-13: 9780816515226
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →An anthology of writings by contemporary Native American authors on the theme of home places, including stories from oral traditions, autobiographical writings, songs, and poems.
Author: Nora Naranjo-Morse
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1992
Total Pages: 134
ISBN-13: 9780816512812
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A noted sculptor turns her talents to poetry in a collection that explores the satisfactions and complications of being a Pueblo Indian woman in the late twentieth century
Author: Greg Sarris
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1994-01-01
Total Pages: 188
ISBN-13: 9780816514342
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In this anthology of poetry and fiction, ten Native Americans of California Indian ancestry illuminate aspects of their respective native cultures in works characterized by a profound love of place and people, as well as by anger over political oppression and social problems
Author:
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1989-07
Total Pages: 84
ISBN-13: 9780816511136
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"My house is the red earth; it could be the center of the world." This is Navajo country, a land of mysterious and delicate beauty. "Stephen Strom's photographs lead you to that place," writes Joy Harjo. "The camera eye becomes a space you can move through into the powerful landscapes that he photographs. The horizon may shift and change all around you, but underneath it is the heart with which we move." Harjo's prose poems accompany these images, interpreting each photograph as a story that evokes the spirit of the Earth. Images and words harmonize to evoke the mysteries of what the Navajo call the center of the world.
Author: Luci Tapahonso
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1997-05
Total Pages: 132
ISBN-13: 9780816517282
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Wrapped in blankets and looking at the stars, a young Navajo girl listened long ago to stories that would guide her for the rest of her life. "Such summer evenings were filled with quiet voices, dogs barking far away, the fire crackling, and often we could hear the faint drums and songs of a ceremony somewhere in the distance," writes Luci Tapahonso in this compelling collection. Blue Horses Rush In takes its title from a poem about the birth of her granddaughter Chamisa, whose heart "pounded quickly and we recognized / the sound of horses running: / the thundering of hooves on the desert floor." Through such personal insights, this collection follows the cycle of a woman's life and underlines what it means to be Navajo in the late twentieth century. The book marks a major accomplishment in American literature for its successful blending of Navajo cultural values and forms with the English language, while at the same time retaining the Navajo character. Here, Luci Tapahonso walks slowly through an ancient Hohokam village, recalling stories passed down from generation to generation. Later in the book, she may tell a funny story about a friend, then, within a few pages, describe family rituals like roasting green chiles or baking bread in an outside oven. Throughout, Tapahonso shares with readers her belief in the power of pollen and prayer feathers and sacred songs. Many of these stories were originally told in Navajo, taking no longer than ten minutes in the telling. "Yet, in recreating them, it is necessary to describe the land, the sky, the light, and other details of time and place," writes Tapahonso. "In this way, I attempt to create and convey the setting for the oral text. In writing, I revisit the place or places concerned and try to bring the reader to them, thereby enabling myself and other Navajos to sojourn mentally and emotionally in our home, Dinétah."
Author: Joseph Bruchac
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1994
Total Pages: 412
ISBN-13: 9780816514861
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →An unprecedented gathering of more than 300 Native writers was held in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1992. The Returning the Gift Festival brought more Native writers together in one place than at any other time in history. "Returning the Gift," observes co-organizer Joseph Bruchac, "both demonstrated and validated our literature and our devotion to it, not just to the public, but to ourselves." In compiling this volume, Bruchac invited every writer who attended the festival to submit new, unpublished work; he then selected the best of the more than 200 submissions to create a collection that includes established writers like Duane Niatum, Simon Ortiz, Lance Henson, Elizabeth Woody, Linda Hogan, and Jeanette Armstrong, and also introduces such lesser-known or new voices as Tracy Bonneau, Jeanetta Calhoun, Kim Blaeser, and Chris Fleet. The anthology includes works from every corner of the continent, representing a wide range of tribal affiliations, languages, and cultures. By taking their peoples' literature back to them in the form of stories and songs, these writers see themselves as returning the gift of storytelling, culture, and continuance to the source from which it came. In addition to contributions by 92 writers are two introductory chapters: Joseph Bruchac comments on the current state of Native literature and the significance of the festival, and Geary Hobson traces the evolution of the event itself.
Author: Simon J. Ortiz
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 2022-08-30
Total Pages: 173
ISBN-13: 0816550751
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →He has been out there somewhere for a while now, a poet at large in America. Simon Ortiz, one of our finest living poets, has been a witness, participant, and observer of interactions between the Euro-American cultural world and that of his Native American people for many years. In this collection of haunting new work, he confronts moments and instances of his personal past—and finds redemption in the wellspring of his culture. A writer known for deeply personal poetry, Ortiz has produced perhaps his most personal work to date. In a collage of journal entries, free-verse poems, and renderings of poems in the Acoma language, he draws on life experiences over the past ten years—recalling time spent in academic conferences and writers' colonies, jails and detox centers—to convey something of the personal and cultural history of dislocation. As an American Indian artist living at times on the margins of mainstream culture, Ortiz has much to tell about the trials of alcoholism, poverty, displacement. But in the telling he affirms the strength of Native culture even under the most adverse conditions and confirms the sustaining power of Native beliefs and connections: "With our hands, we know the sacred earth. / With our spirits, we know the sacred sky." Like many of his fellow Native Americans, Ortiz has been "out there somewhere"—Portland and San Francisco, Freiburg, Germany, and Martinique—away from his original homeland, culture, and community. Yet, as these works show, he continues to be absolutely connected socially and culturally to Native identity: "We insist that we as human cultural beings must always have this connection," he writes, "because it is the way we maintain a Native sense of existence." Drawing on this storehouse of places, times, and events, Out There Somewhere is a rich fusion taking readers into the heart and soul of one of today's most exciting and original American poets.
Author: Ofelia Zepeda
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1995-03
Total Pages: 104
ISBN-13: 9780816515417
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The annual seasons and rhythms of the desert are a dance of clouds, wind, rain, and flood—water in it roles from bringer of food to destroyer of life. The critical importance of weather and climate to native desert peoples is reflected with grace and power in this personal collection of poems, the first written creative work by an individual in O'odham and a landmark in Native American literature. Poet Ofelia Zepeda centers these poems on her own experiences growing up in a Tohono O'odham family, where desert climate profoundly influenced daily life, and on her perceptions as a contemporary Tohono O'odham woman. One section of poems deals with contemporary life, personal history, and the meeting of old and new ways. Another section deals with winter and human responses to light and air. The final group of poems focuses on the nature of women, the ocean, and the way the past relationship of the O'odham with the ocean may still inform present day experience. These fine poems will give the outside reader a rich insight into the daily life of the Tohono O'odham people.
Author: Carter Revard
Publisher:
Published: 1993
Total Pages: 152
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"We are given this world and some time with friends. How time dawned on mind and was beaded into language amazes me the way an orb-spider's web or a computerchip does. . ". Carter Revard, Osage Indian poet, Rhodes scholar, and professor of medieval English literature, shares both this amazement and his amazing command of language in this first retrospective collection of forty published and unpublished pieces written from 1970 to 1991. As much at home reading Old English manuscripts at the British Museum as he is taking part in Osage ceremonials, Revard possesses an exact knowledge of European poetic forms along with an equally impressive knowledge of Native American traditional narrative. When combined, these seemingly disparate genres produce literary tensions that Revard handles with skill and grace. Revard's poems may be set in Oklahoma, across America, or in Europe; they may even straddle the map, as in "Homework at Oxford", where a late-night contemplation of Breughel's "Adoration of the Magi" triggers images of home and conveys a sense of global connectedness. His poems concern a wide range of themes and reflect a unique blending of poetic and cultural traditions, rendered in voices ranging from quiet reflection to hot invective. "I am grateful that water and language, time and space, memory and writing have been given us", says Revard, "and I've set their star-stuff into the best poems I could for you who hold this book". Those who have long admired his talents will be grateful for it, while those reading him for the first time will rejoice in the discovery.
