Tag: Indigenous People’s Day
Celebrating Indigenous People’s Day with Local Poetry
This October, the Literatures community in the UC Berkeley Library wants to acknowledge that Berkeley sits on the territory of xučyun (Huichin (Hoo-Choon), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo (Cho-chen-yo) speaking Ohlone people, the successors of the historic and sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County. For more information on UC Berkeley’s stance, take a look at Centers for Educational Justice & Community Engagement’s statement on Ohlone Land.
To celebrate that history, here are a few excerpts from different California Indigenous peoples including Ohlone as well as Chowchilla- or Coast Miwok poets that this Literatures group enjoys. We encourage you to read the full poems and check out the authors’ collections.
November 1980
November
and up near Eureka
the highway has tumbled
with what may be
the last earthquake
of the year; offshore
Jade green water
chops holes in the yellow
sandstone cliff.
[…]
and up near Eureka
the highway has tumbled
with what may be
the last earthquake
of the year; offshore
Jade green water
chops holes in the yellow
sandstone cliff.
[…]
– Wendy Rose. For full poem see “Three California Indian Poems,” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 2, no. 2 (Winter 1980): 158.
For more of Rose’s poetry, take a look at Lost Copper (1980, UC Library Search)
For more of Rose’s poetry, take a look at Lost Copper (1980, UC Library Search)
Old Territory, New Maps
You plan an uncomplicated path
through Colorado’s red dust,
around the caustic edge of Utah’s salt flats
a single night at a hotel
in the Idaho panhandle. Our plans change.
It’s spring, we are two Indian women along
together and the days open:
sunrise on a fine long road,
antelope against dry hills,
heron emerging from dim fields.
You tell me this is a journey
you’ve always wanted to take.
You ask me to tell you what I want.
[…]
through Colorado’s red dust,
around the caustic edge of Utah’s salt flats
a single night at a hotel
in the Idaho panhandle. Our plans change.
It’s spring, we are two Indian women along
together and the days open:
sunrise on a fine long road,
antelope against dry hills,
heron emerging from dim fields.
You tell me this is a journey
you’ve always wanted to take.
You ask me to tell you what I want.
[…]
– Deborah A. Miranda. For full poem, take a look at Zen of La Llorona (UC Library Search) or poetryfoundation.org.
For the Living
Standing high on this hillside
the wind off the Pacific
forming the language of grasses
and escarpment eternally speaking
the sea birds far out
on their planes of air
gather and squander
what the short days encompass
[…]
– Stephen Meadows . For full poem check out the anthology The Sound of Rattles and Clappers (UC Library Catalog) or take a look at Meadows’ recent book Winter Work (UC Library Search).
Memory Weaver
Grandmother weave me a story
The memories she pulls out of me sting like poison. Her little fingers nimbly poke the top of my scalp, as if she was carefully choosing each memory to set on top of her loom.
The silence is deafening as Grandmother Dreamweaver works on my unusual request. She is the protector of dreams, not a keeper of memories. Yet, she understands what I have asked of her.
[…]
– Yulu Ewis. For full poem, see News from Native California, Berkeley. 32,.no. 3 (Spring 2019): 24 on Ethnic News Watch. For additional poetry, take a look at Dream Weaver and the Coyote-Man’s Tale (soon to be in the UC Berkeley Library).