Jim--
in the post that follows this one, I _will_ respond to your discussion prompt,
but I wanted to offer these couple of poems as a warning (friendly! :)) about
teaching/reading/writing in the contact zone.  They come from Wendy Rose's
_Going to War With All My Relations_ (Flagstaff: Entrada Books, 1993). Can we
think about these as texts and as textual sticks in the ribs to remind us of
what can/will/might happen when we begin to think about what happens to
students (and fellow scholars) when they are asked to enter and engage the
contact zone in any form??  Commentary would be welcome!!
 
*Comment on Ethnopoetics and Literacy*
 
for jerome
 
I gradually came to understand that the words on the pages were trapped words.
Anyone could learn to decipher the symbols and turn the trapped words loose
again into speech.  The ink of the print trapped the thoughts; they could no
more get away than a domboo could get out of a pit.
                                                -- Modupe, African writer
 
Pick the words
from the evening rain
with throats exposed,
bound and thrown, quickly
thrust the spike in
bladeside down and turn,
now pull it up
from the neck
and drain them all
side by side,
guts on the ground,
paws in a small pile,
everything severed
and stripped down to bone.
 
Remake the bodies
in different positions--
another with one forefoot lifted;
strengthen those dead bones with sticks,
puff out that hanging skin with cotton,
make the muscles bunch again with clay.
Where once they scanned the sky
or the ground for hawk shadows,
put tiny glass balls or bits of amber.
Admire what you have done.
 
Re-arrange the figures
into a natural scene.
Paint the background
into jungle or desert,
scatter sand or leaves
around their claws.  Remember
how you danced to their beauty,
how you caught your breath watching them run,
how you moved your head
listening to them call to each other
to mate in the moonlight.
 
You make them move
with the tip of your finger.
 
You think that now
they will live forever.
 
 
 
 
=============================
 
*For the Scholar Who Wrote a Book
About an American Indian Literary Renaissance*
 
        It was winter. We were not loved.
        We had nothing but our weapons
        loose and easy.  The enemy could be
        anywhere, was actually everywhere.
        Our hands were stiff.  Our lungs were hot.
        We carried sacred fire.  We camped
        behind you.  You were deaf.  So we laughed.
 
                Do you remember
when you twisted the wax from your ears
and shouted to me, 'You finally speak!'
because now you
could finally hear?
                The renaissance, you said, had begun
and beads began to sprout
around our necks, stones germinated
from the backs of our fingers;
the drum began in the middle of the night
and you said 'The words have broken free
from silent stoic throats'
and from the pain of forgetting
we almost agreed.
                When you turned around
your mouth a great O
you finally heard
our long and noisy wait.  Or was it
mosquito squealing
in your ear?
 
=================================