stubborngrass

[stubborngrass]

“Visiting San Francisco” Section 4

Maurice Kenny’s Visiting San Francisco is almost humorous in its subject matter and brevity. However, beneath the short stanza is an interesting analysis of direct action and what it means to reclaim stolen land. For some, existence as resistance does not require tragic figures mourning their past. Instead, the very act of joyfully living surrounded by companions within an occupied settler colonial state can be enough. In a country that seeks to destroy the lives of indigenous citizens, resisting this violence with anger and mockery is a powerful tool. Additionally, Kenny’s choice to urinate as a way to “reclaim” the stolen land San Francisco is built on somewhat reminded my of Tuck and Yang’s Decolonization is Not a Metaphor, as it is only through direct action and land reparations that decolonization could take place. Obviously, Kenny meant this as a joke, yet the political systems  of colonization we live under still impact our daily lives whether or not we joke about them.

[stubborngrass]

“Rebirth” Section 4

Sarah Sharp’s return to herself through the love of another indigenous person represents a powerful tale of solidarity and community. Ironically, it is traveling thousands of miles that brings Sharp closest to her history and identity. With this love between them, Sharp is able to realize how colonization has so far removed her from her culture, and has disembodied her so thoroughly. She describes the process of being broken into pieces, the fear that accompanied her existence. Only by the radical love and community building described is Sharp able build the bridges necessary to heal herself. It is a powerful act of resistance for two indigenous bodies to not only exist but to love one another, and to help support each other as they attempt to decolonize themselves. Colonization by its very nature is an act of death and violence, yet much like wildflowers growing from the ashes of wildfires, indigenous love and resistance is reborn and will outlast the colonizer’s violence.

[stubborngrass]

“Gray’s Sea Change” Section 3

I really loved this poem, even if I couldn’t quite pin down the meaning. I think Daniel Moses’s writing speaks to the incredibly isolating experience of what it means to be queer without a community to be a part of. The physical setting of watching from a cold, stormy shore only to almost drown alone in crashing waves really resonated with me. The longing to join the sea and be a part of the ecosystem there, was similar to the longing I felt to be a part of a queer community surrounded by an oppressive religious environment. And though the subject of the poem supposedly recovers after being dragged from the ocean where they were, I couldn’t help but feel that the woman’s laughter was more mocking than humorous. To her, watching the subject drown in the ocean represented loss, yet to the subject it meant belonging, and who is to say the subject could have breathed underwater if given enough time, if blue webs would have grown between their toes. Queer people fitting into spaces deemed uninhabitable by straight people is not a new concept, as we are experts at surviving in places we are not meant to.

[stubborngrass]

“Jerry, Sheree, and the Eel” Section 3

Shifting between true and false stanzas of recollection, Dan Taulapapa McMullin’s poem Jerry, Sheree, and the Eel offers a perspective on queer bodies and experiences in Samoan culture. From one perspective, the poem describes how Sheree grew throughout her transition to eventually provide support for other queer Samoans. However, it is McMullin’s use of the eel as a symbol throughout the poem that provides another interpretation of Sheree’s experience. In Samoan folklore, the head of an eel was once planted by a beautiful woman to create the first coconut trees. McMullin offers a queer retelling of this story with this poem, centering Sheree as the woman who plants not only coconuts but an entire queer community within Samoa. As the eel chases Sheree through all of Samoa as described in the final stanza, it can be interpreted as either Sheree carrying her Samoan heritage with her throughout her life, or as the gendered expectations of her family and society following her every move. Either way, the metaphorical use of the eel inextricably links sexuality with culture and race, as Sheree embraces both in her activism and transition.

[stubborngrass]

“Ander’s Awakening” Section 3

Set in a medieval fantasy world, Ander’s Awakening follows the story of a young woman realizing her true self and enacting revenge on her abusers as she prepares for a life beyond her small village. The short story is broken up into vignettes, with each scene representing a different phase of Ander/Denarra’s transition. Beginning with fearful denial of her identity as a result of her family’s abuse, the narrative shifts to acknowledging her queerness through her love for Pontpael. Section three then sees Denarra realizing her right to exist through her mentor’s words and Pontpael’s gift of a dress, while sections four and five consist of Denarra coming into her own and taking action to free herself and live authentically. Throughout the story, fire is used as a symbol of her growth and transition. Her dreams of fire consuming her as a cleansing agent begin the first section, while it is fire which finally releases her from her abusive uncle’s control. There is also a poetic resonance to Denarra making her final escape on the river-fire may have freed her, but it is water that will bring her peace.

[stubborngrass]

“Sweet Grass” Section 3

Something that I have noticed in pseudo-progressive, predominately white discourse is the treatment of indigenous people as tragic figures of the past. The focus on explaining the history of colonialism has led to erasing contemporary Native voices and experiences from mainstream discussions. Carrie House’s Sweet Grass rejects this narrative and celebrates the continued existence of her Navajo heritage. Butchering a buffalo is described by House as similar to reaching back and being within a mother’s womb, a metaphorical continuation of a generations-long tradition of survival and skill. Brought back from the edge of extinction, House uses the buffalo’s resilience to speak to the resilience of her own people’s history, especially considering the mass slaughter of North American buffalo by white settlers as a tool of colonization. It is the last line of this poem “One evening, I, Navajo, eat buffalo in Tiwa country” that drives home House’s poetic symbolism of resistance and survival. Neither House, the buffalo, or her Tiwa companions were meant to survive the mass genocide that founded the United States, yet all three of them remain in this occupied settler state, and all three of them survive together in harmony and solidarity.

[stubborngrass]

“authentically ethnic” Section 3

What does it mean to be “authentically ethnic”? This is a question raised by poet Luna Maia in their prose poem by the same name. To Maia, their Native identity is not defined by that which is imprinted in the white imagination by American media, but rather by generations of resiliency and survival. The doubt cast upon Maia’s heritages by the anonymous letter author is also explored in a more internal context, as the author reflects on the ways that their racial identity as Native and Mexican are also called into question. This doubt expressed can also be compared to the ways that queerness is constantly questioned by heteropatriarchy. Processes of colonization have excluded Maia from both their Native identity and queerness, yet in a revolutionary act of self love, Maia rejects the need to define their identity, instead celebrating a wholeness of being not defined by colonial notions of authentic ethnicity.

[stubborngrass]

“Love Poem, After Arizona” Section 2

A celebration of queer love, Qwo-Li Driskill’s Love Poem, After Arizona was one of my favorite poems from Section Two. Written to a man of mixed-race identity, Driskill calls to their lover to embrace his indigenous heritage and history underneath the layer of armor developed as a self-defense mechanism against colonization. Driskill’s love for their partner breaks boundaries as a radical act of anti-colonial resistance. By holding and loving each other across borders imposed by colonizers (“paths older than/metal fences”, “our gasps birth hurricanes/no law can stop”), the violence separating these spaces is instead bridged by intimacy and connection. Additionally, the very act of “two mixed-blood boys” celebrating a queer relationship is inherently a resistive act in the wake of centuries of violence imposed by heteropatriarchy. In all, Love Poem is a powerful treatise on reclaiming indigeneity and queerness through loving one another as a radical act.

[stubborngrass]

“A meditation partially composed in a D.C. coffeehouse...” Section 2

A short piece written in a stream of consciousness, style, Malea Powell’s description of lost love and heartbreak speaks to the history and significance of intergenerational trauma. As the prose flows from one memory to another, Powell explores the way that her and her partner’s identity are continuously shaped by the violence described in the title of her meditation. Part love poem, part expression of grief for what was destroyed during colonization, the way that Powell swings between these two subjects, often in the same line, speaks to the way that the intergenerational trauma is so deeply embedded that it cannot be separated from other deeply felt emotions such as love. Eventually, the shared trauma of American colonization and the Holocaust becomes too great for Jeff and Malea to bear, as Powell writes that she “ache[s] for an escape from holocausts even thought that’s almost all we have in common…” (85). As Powell mourns reflective on this relationship, the reader must consider whether the distance between Powell and Jeff and Powell and the United States can ever be healed.

[stubborngrass]

“Chantway for F.C.” Section 1

The beauty and pain and loss expressed in Qwo-Li Driskill’s Chantway for F.C. is a viscerally stunning look into how Driskill attempts to process their grief. I read this piece five times before I could even begin to process it, Driskill’s poetry is nearly otherworldly. In this piece, Driskill uses metaphor to highlight the connection between the body and the land, as both a reminder of the importance of the land and as a way to cope with grief. Comparing the spirit and memory of F.C. to such eternal things as the wind, thunderstorms, and the earth itself allows the author to remind themselves of the persistence of life after death, and hold the memory of F.C. in the present. This use of metaphor also reifies the connection to the land from a perspective of indigenous epistemology, as Driskill discusses respecting the memory of F.C. the same way they would care for the landscape surrounding them.

[stubborngrass]

“Gathering of Nations” Section 1

In reading William Raymond Taylor’s short piece Gathering of Nations, I was reminded of several similarities between Taylor’s piece and Kahente Horn-Miller’s Bring Us Back into the Dance. Both pieces use the instance of a community pow wow to frame and discuss dancing as a powerful act of resistance against settler colonialism. While Taylor uses powerful imagery to place the audience at the scene and bring a sense of life into the prose, Horn-Miller focuses primarily on the long term healing effects of the ceremony. However, both authors describe the ways that dancers are able to find a sense of belonging  and energy through this process. The final lines of Gathering of Nations speak to this experience with Taylor writing “So when heavy-hearted and depressed, I reach for powwow music/And know my place in the Circle”, a remarkably similar sentiment to a quote from Kahente Horn-Miller: “She is thanking them for bringing the Wasase back so that she may dance and become strong again”. Both authors are empowered by this radical act of resistance, and work to preserve their respective cultures through the community act of dance as an expression of joy.

[stubborngrass]

“Some Like Indians Endure” Section 1

My absolute favorite piece from Section One was Paula Gunn Allen’s “Some Like Indians Endure”. In it, Allen explores both her experience as both a queer woman and a member of the Laguna Pueblo people, and the history those identities carry. By consistently using the term “they” to reference either lesbians and Native people (depending on the verse) in her poem, Allen evokes the othering language used to refer to both groups. Comparing these similar lived experiences reiterates to the reader the ways in which Allen’s identities are inextricably intertwined. Allen also compares the ways in which heteropatriarchy as a result of colonization impacts the spaces she has existed in with the lines “so dykes/are like indians/because everybody is related/to everybody/in pain/in terror”. This sobering verse speaks to a shared history of violence and oppression overcome by solidarity and community. With this poem, Allen seeks to put words to the pain, connection, and tenacity that exists in communities which have rallied and fought for themselves and their rights for centuries.