My proposed idea for this project was to write several poems and then use Native American and poetry analysis to analyze them. The goal was not to suggest our week in Pine Ridge had made me Lakota, but I was interested in seeing if there were some elusive aspects of the indigenous experience that may have snuck into my consciousness and could be expressed through writing abstract poetry. I was also curious to see if this analysis would suggest that some aspects of my experience were more universal than others.
I did this by first finding a couple articles I thought would be good to use as the basis of analysis, and without reading them, then wrote several poems to attempt to remove some sort of bias in my writing towards a certain form of writing. After completion, I read the articles and noted aspects that seemed important to the authors, and checked to see if there were themes that were in my own poetry.
There were not. The first article I read, Borderland Voices in Contemporary Native American Poetry by Robin Riley Fast was about borderland mentality and was largely about reconciliation for indigenous tribes trying to find a way to reconcile western America with their own traditions. The second article, “Another Kind of Violence: Sherman Alexie’s Poems” by Ron McFarland seemed to question the very notion of Native American poetry, but what it did timidly suggest defined the genre was a contrast between individual achievement and social responsibility to represent indigenous people. This is not present in my poems. There was also a suggestion that the Native American poetry contains, shockingly, imagery and themes of indigenous tradition such as respect for ancestors, connection to the earth, etc. Some of my poems seem to include some of this in the animals I mention and in grandfather stone, but this is information I already held before going to Pine Ridge, so I don’t consider it to have been influenced by our time at the rez.
The analysis part of the project did not go as I planned, but some post-presentation conversation made me realize that it was okay, maybe even good, that it didn’t work out. The validity of the significance of my experience does not to be found in the connection my own work has to other’s form of analysis. Instead, I am valuing more the observation of a peer, that the poetry I produced, along with all the other projects, are great reformulated expressions and reminders of our experience at Pine Ridge, that at their best evoke the experience again, and maybe provide even more insight into it’s significance.
Anyhow, here are the poems that I wrote, hope they can be a sliver of a reminder as to what Pine Ridge was all about.
Instructions on Sweatlodge
Enter darkness, foolish steps
No point in knowing what you’ll get
Sit down close to those you’ve met
And knowledge that you’ll soon forget
Look around the common space,
Fueled by fire, matched with grace
And strain to see the others faces
And pain to see in others faces
And faced with pain, yet feeling free
And this, you see
Is simply me
With shaken feelings, every plea
Every thank you, every please
Empty substance, burning water
Father and mother, sister to brother
Seeing darkness, every color
Light not provided, but discovered
Rainbow smiles, itchy toes
A world inside, a world below
Sacredness for spirits growth
And all the eyes begin their flow
From lit up faces
To the ones we know
To the ones we knew past visual aid
To thoughts we’ve held and thought we made
To recognizing truth in bare form
Truth in eagle, hawk, and new-borns
Nevaeh, Heaven and everything between
The simple pleasure of living a dream
Privilege and the guilty streams
Of mud and dirt and things unseen
Graciousness in walls forseen
Walls built up, tipis forsaken
T.P.s unfortunate connotation
And tipis strength in standing still
Stillness, land, and deep landfills
To efforts made to go underground
Visit the place where darkness bounds
And in this darkness return at last
To the present, and therefore the past
Yes, return to darkness again at last
Darkness where no time has passed
The Eyes Burn
Brave fools
Fall in the pool
Can’t see cus the eyes burn
Can’t breathe cus the earth turns
Who knew water was so SPICY
Fall in the pool
Dive to the deep
Can’t breathe cus the earth turns
The heart, burns with blood
Who knew water was so SPICY
Dive to the deep
Find what the dusty sand hides
The heart, burns with blood
The earth beats below the ocean
Who knew water was so SPICY
Find what the dusty sand hides
Excavate the relics of the mind
The earth beats below the ocean
Shellmounds crackle with broken shells
Who knew water was so SPICY
Excavate the relics of the mind
Hold space sacred of what’s inside
Shellmounds crackle with broken shells
Fire crackles far from hell
Who knew water was so SPICY
Hold space sacred of what’s inside
Can’t breathe cus the earth turns
Fire crackles far from hell
Brave fools
Who knew water was so SPICY
Red People
Transpose the song
And I’ll sing it to you
One of ballad, temper, and fear
Transpose the song
And the singer will come down to you
And in his language
Speak to you about forgotten people
The red people, you see
Were once real,
And were red because
Their skin was translucent.
Blood was their substance
Sun was their only fuel.
Then skin became beautiful
And colors emerged
People wore new colors
Black, yellow, white
Some even wore red skin
But blood became hidden.
It is true about inner beauty
Take a slice and see
The same beauty in you
Runs under all other skins
Transpose the song
And the singer will sing it to you
In the native tongue
So that each ear might hear
Transpose the song
And I’ll sing it to you
So that you might temper
Your ballad of fear
Haikous
Flap opens, hiss of air
Steam rises to kiss the cool
Hey! There are the spirits
Pink walls, broken floor
And the real founding fathers
Heritage passed on
Seconds of Mt. Rushmore
Sacred land capitalism
Crazy Horse much bigger
