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I live in two worlds: American Indian and European American. I grew up in a world where reality speaks a subliminal language to humans and is always present. This language, this way of perceiving and experiencing, is the matrix of my poetry.
I am from the hills of Oklahoma, from a large extended family living in the valleys and hills and along the Red River. Since leaving to go to college and find work I have found that the only place I feel at home is among tribal people. If I am too long away the world begins to die. |
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But I also live in the dominant culture. In fact much of my working life has been at this interface between tribal and dominant cultures. Poetry is a way I express the conflict between these two worlds. It is a way to integrate the profound differences.
Poetry is also a way I worship. When I am awestruck by love, the sudden breaking apart of limited understanding, I need some way to express the intensity. Poetry is also the way I give back to that which gives these experiences. When the mountain is clearly watching, when she breaks open to her conscious reality, I want to return something of myself, something worthy of what she has given. I write for other reasons.
My grandchildren are children of the dominant culture. But it may be that sometime they will want to know a different reality, another way of experiencing life. When they remember that I presented them to nature, that I explained to the wind and the water who they are and where they come from, something might wake up in them. If this happens I trust that they will be able to find in my poetry another way to live. In fact, I think anyone who reads poetry knows it as a means to another world. People who read poetry know the voice of the mountain, the love emanating from stones, the river that is different from the water it carries. These are the people I talk to in my poems.
Poetry is also a way I worship. When I am awestruck by love, the sudden breaking apart of limited understanding, I need some way to express the intensity. Poetry is also the way I give back to that which gives these experiences. When the mountain is clearly watching, when she breaks open to her conscious reality, I want to return something of myself, something worthy of what she has given. I write for other reasons.
My grandchildren are children of the dominant culture. But it may be that sometime they will want to know a different reality, another way of experiencing life. When they remember that I presented them to nature, that I explained to the wind and the water who they are and where they come from, something might wake up in them. If this happens I trust that they will be able to find in my poetry another way to live. In fact, I think anyone who reads poetry knows it as a means to another world. People who read poetry know the voice of the mountain, the love emanating from stones, the river that is different from the water it carries. These are the people I talk to in my poems.
