In our November meeting honoring Native American Heritage Month, the S.U.R.E. Diversity Book Club gathered to talk about Poet Warrior, by Joy Harjo. The book is a memoir written by a poet, and clearly poet power fuels the prose; each word has weight and intent.
Harjo’s book is densely packed with wisdom. There are also surprises. I was awestruck by the stories of soulful animals: robins, owls, snakes, and even pink dolphins witnessed in the Amazon.
I was deeply inspired by Harjo’s ability to transform her worst moments (involving her world’s worst people) into something positive and meaningful. For example, she wishes that her stepfather, whom she often refers to as “the monster”, had never been part of her life, but in the next breath she proclaims him to be “...probably one of my greatest teachers” (p.92). She treats the story of her father in the same way: she recounts how he crept up on her mother and threatened to kill their crying baby if she would not be quiet. Abruptly, at the top of the next page, Harjo offers up a soothing lullaby to the baby that was once her father, as well as a mention of his own childhood trauma. The author then shares what appears to be a school picture of her father when he was very young. These offerings are suffused with warmth; the young boy seems familiar in the way that people in school pictures do.
The trauma suffered by each generation of Native Nations is a noticeable part of the Poet Warrior reading experience, and it is burdensome. Overall though, I found myself rejoicing each time Harjo pulled through the suffering and was reborn a wiser and more compassionate person. Her way of communicating with ancestors I found reassuring and cozy. It seemed like a great way to cope with loneliness. In a poem that she writes out of a wish that she could have carried out last ceremonial rites after her mother’s death (“Washing My Mother’s Body”, p.211), there are these lines:
I cannot say goodbye yet.
I will never say goodbye.(p.213)
Yet the last line of the poem reads: “...and then I let her go” (p.215). Somehow, these lines don’t clash but work together in harmony. In short, I found the distinctive marriage of contrasts to be one of the striking features of this profoundly beautiful book.
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At the start of our meeting, I asked everyone to write down an excerpt they liked. I’m including people’s choices below, but I have made an effort to limit the quoted material, so there is also paraphrasing. Also, #3 goes beyond excerpting and includes some outside associations the club member had. I hope you’ll excuse the haphazard presentation…
1. “The gifts of the earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on” (p.24). (Lines taken from Harjo’s poem “Perhaps the World Ends Here”.)
2. The importance of listening over speaking
3. “Momaday’s poem, and perhaps every poem, establishes itself as a kind of “I am” assertion” (p.181). How this compares to Descartes’s “I think, therefore I am”, and how this in turn compares to the African philosophy “I am because we are. We are because I am.”
4. The importance of stories, especially those that haunt you. “It’s why we return to our childhood home, to the same rooms, the same lands, the same songs on the radio.”
5. “When we were colonized, female deities were deliberately disappeared from our indigenous stories” (p.88). The excerpt notes the lack of women in the Trinity of Christianity. “Mothers lost their place next to the fathers” (p.89). Roles of teachers and caretakers that women took were not respected even though they were of the greatest value to society.
6. A girl growing up: one day hating everyone, the next day seeing beauty everywhere.
7. “We discussed how history lives within us, even if we don’t know it. How even something like daring is passed forward because it needs a place to live” (p.18).
8. “We are all here to serve each other. At some point we have to understand that we do not need to carry a story that is unbearable. We can observe the story, which is mental; feel the story, which is physical; let the story go, which is emotional; then forgive the story, which is spiritual, after which we use the materials of it to build a house of knowledge” (p.20).
9. Harjo writes about overcoming the pain her mother caused her by failing to protect her daughter from her predatory stepfather. She decides to free herself of the expectations associated with the term “mother”. She then declares it was an honor to have served her mother, just as it is an honor to be a mother (p.88).
As our meeting hour came to a close, a club member passed out one of Harjo’s poems for us to read. She thought it would be like a prayer, and an appropriate way to end the meeting, considering the deep spirituality of the author. It was.
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Recommended books by Native authors:
Non-fiction
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, by David Treuer The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, by Thomas King
How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America, edited by Sara Sinclair
Project 562 by Matika Wilbur
Young Adult
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a novel by Sherman Alexie
Poetry
When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through
comprehensive poetry collection edited by Joy Harjo
Fiction
There, There by Tommy Orange
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (recommended by book club member Sharon S.) Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
I hope to read:
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (I read a sample online and LOVED it.)
A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power
Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead (The sample kept me engrossed.)
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