Diane Burns's Poem

When I think of a poet, images of scowling, mustached men whose 19th century wardrobe could use an update spring to mind—a somber Edgar Allen Poe type whose ink strokes inquire of unrequited love interests and dreary days alone in the snow. I certainly do not imagine modern, multi-ethnic women who live in the same state as me. However, as soon as I read Natasha Trethewey’s poetry, I immediately admired the way her words so effortlessly danced on the page, my mind’s eye watching the elegant choreography with each syllable read. Moreover, when I learned of her tragic history, and the strength and resilience she possessed to carry on, I could not help but to respect the way she turned pain into beautiful art. The right words carry great power

Many were forced to evacuate to other regions within the country and endure the infamous Trail of Tears. While Native Americans are not forcibly removed from their homes anymore, this story shows a modern-day example of mistreatment or borders that Native Americans deal with. While the mother faced many different conflicts, externally and internally, she readily accepts the challenge and is not willing to step down. She displays the pride of the Blackfoot Indians and is not willing to let the government tell her who she is and let them define her. She sets an example for Native Americans, standing up against a government that has held them down for so long. That they should always have pride in who they are, and where they came

In Sherman Alexie’s short story excerpt, The Approximate Size of my Favorite Tumor, he highlights the identity of his people through the use of humor. Humor is perpetually seen throughout this work, defining Alexie’s style and view of the world around him. It is both a coping mechanism and a way of communicating with those around him, as it is a language everyone can understand. In this sense, it weaves together Alexie’s view of Native American identity. Alexie uses this humor both to subtly reveal stereotypes about Native American people and communities and to maneuver through everyday life.

“The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo” is a fictional novel based on true events written by the popular American author, Kent Nerburn. Nerburn connected the reader to the ways of the Native Americans and non-Natives. Many non-Natives believe they have a basic understanding of the Native Americans, and what they have dealt with the US government. However, Nerburn provides a different perspective in comprehending the irritation the Native Americans thought of Americans not fully realizing they are heckling the Natives in this manner. Kent Nerburn had some issues with the Natives in not thinking through his decisions when confronting a Native about any questions he may have resulting in mounts of annoyance of the Natives.

The Author in the Poem “Today was a Bad Day like TB” takes pride in her heritage as a Lakota Indian to the point of being understandably bitter. In one situation for example she was talking to a “young blond Hippie boy” ( ) about a pipe and she notices how ignorant he was about the significance of the pipe or from what tribe the pipe came from. The young boy was naïve about Native American culture but pleasant, but as she stated, “ he said all friendly & Liberal as only those with no pain can be “She sees him as someone who does not value or understand the suffering of the Native American people, and only uses the pipe as a prop or a trendy object. She is mad; she feels that her culture is only meant as a stereotype or at tool for enjoyment, as she holds her culture in high value, against what she perceives as being stereotyped by a white boy. While her anger is understandable it appears bitter and an overreaction to a kid who

Alexie uses first hand experiences all throughout his article to depict the reality of American Indian’s lives. By appealing to the pathos, he gives his readers the ability to empathize with him, experiencing both the trials and triumphs. His use of analogies provides his audience with visuals that portray his experiences more accurately. When Alexie writes about himself in

The woman is frustrated because the person is asking her many questions because of the way she looks. The person is stereotyping her into different ethnic groups. Such as, the person asks the Native American lady if she made Navajo rugs because she is Native American. She also wonders if she majors in archery because of her ethnicity. “No, I don’t know where you can get Navajo rugs real cheap / No, I didn’t make this. I bought it at Bloomingdales (26-27) . . . No, I didn’t major in archery” (34). Readers interpret from the poem that the Native American woman is annoyed from all of the lady’s questions. The Native American woman responds with very brief answers. By her short responses, readers can conclude that the Native American woman is becoming offended by what the lady is assuming is true about Native Americans. It is evident that the lady does not realize that she is being rude and judgmental to the Native American lady. Although the lady is not being prejudicial intentionally, she still offends the Native American

The American Indian occupies a unique place in the White American imaginary. Indians, one is told, are cordial, wise, poor in the “humble poverty” sort of way, brown, there assist whites with either mystic knowledge or humorous ignorance. Figures such as Squanto, Tonto and Disney’s Pocahontas along with a large smattering of Westerns and cartoonish depictions have created this image of the Native American – an image which rarely translates into the present day. In contrast to this, Sherman Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a Native American coming-of-age story centered around the first-person point of view of the Native protagonist Arnold “Junior” Spirit, Jr. and his dual life on the Spokane Indian Reservation and his time off the reservation at an all-white public school in the town of Reardan, Washington. The novel revolves around themes like race, identity formation and mortality and details life on Indian reservations as it attempts to give a realistic account of contemporary Native American life, each which shape the novel in unique ways.

Deborah Miranda’s entire novel Bad Indians counters the view that Native Indians are and have been gone. Throughout the novel Miranda uses tools of domination as tools of agency. The whole structure of the novel seeks to undermine the dominant discourse in society by paralleling it to the California Mission projects. This and her use of other techniques throughout the novel re-situates the history of the native community as a whole which contrasts Miranda’s feelings and views in her present state. Rather than viewing her people’s history as destroyed and irreparable, she views her people’s history as a means of reinventing themselves to something different, possibly better. She challenges the discourse that I, her people, and many others share; the effects of colonization have completely erased the native communities. First she illustrates the dominant culture that exists and then counters it by using devices like metaphor to attest to the resilience and adaptability of the natives. Finally she objectifies herself to embrace a new view of her people on a personal and social level. Miranda uses her literary work as a tool of agency particularly in A Californian Indian in the Philadelphia Airport by using allusion, metaphor, and objectification to undermine the dominant culture that the Native American peoples are passive and have disappeared.

Rosemary Dobson's Poetry "Rosemary Dobson seems intent on presenting a view of life as bleak and generally uninteresting In the poems by Rosemary Dobson it generally presents the view of life as bleak. " The Tiger" is an example of this. This also reinforces the limitations on her poetic inspirations. The idea is presented by the effective use of imagery, tone, sound devices and the temporary progression.

Sherman Alexie’s novel, Reservation Blues, successfully captures the essence of pain and struggle that was so evident in both the slavery of Africans and the eradication of Native Americans, and integrates the power of blues music in order to bring the reader a breathtaking story. Alexie develops a strong, interconnected web of characters sharing common misfortune. Whether it is in Coyote Spring’s inability to succeed, Robert Johnson’s painstaking attempt to leave his guitar over the years, alcoholism within the character’s families, discrimination, or any other aspect of Native American life, Sherman Alexie is able to combine the characteristics of Blues music with the oppressed Native American culture present in his novel Reservation Blues.

In That Guy Wolf Dancing, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn tells a nonfiction story of Philip Big Pipe’s life as a twenty-something Native American from the Santee Sioux or Mdewakanton Dakota tribe that is just trying to find his way in the world. At the hospital where Philip works part time, the “old-young woman” he works with dies and unexpectedly leaves Philip in her will. She left him an incredibly sacred buckskin shirt and war stick that was most likely stolen from a Native American hung at New Ulm after the Santee War with the United States. The sudden change in the old-young woman’s will causes a lot of legal drama that Philip consequently becomes tangled up in. Along with the various legal battles that Philip goes through, he also experiences the death of several other friends, an unexpected relationship, and constantly being oppressed because of his culture. By the use of marginalization and violence, Cook-Lynn portrays how oppression has negatively changed and shaped the lives of Native Americans through the example of Philip in her novella That Guy Wolf Dancing.

“My Husband Discovers Poetry”, by Diane Lockward is a very interesting piece of poetry that I have thoroughly enjoyed delving into. The idea behind the poem is that the writer felt angry and discouraged because her husband would never read her work, so essentially to get back at him she wrote a poem about cheating on him. She hid it away in the hopes that he would one day find and read it. This poem is Lockward telling the story of writing her poem, and what happens when her husband finally discovers it. The meaning of the poem is that we must support our loved ones.

Because of her use of rhythm and rhyme, this poem is a lyric poem. In the song version, the singer has extended the last stanza of words in each quatrain, probably to bring more effect to the poem. This repetition of a word or phrase throughout a poem is called anaphora and it's a technique used a lot in order to help the poem progress as a well as tie it together. For

The poem begins with two lines which are repeated throughout the poem which convey what the narrator is thinking, they represent the voice in