He has been out there somewhere for a while now, a poet at large in America. Simon Ortiz, one of our finest living poets, has been a witness, participant, and observer of interactions between the Euro-American cultural world and that of his Native American people for many years. In this collection of haunting new work, he confronts moments and instances of his personal past—and finds redemption in the wellspring of his culture. A writer known for deeply personal poetry, Ortiz has produced perhaps his most personal work to date. In a collage of journal entries, free-verse poems, and renderings of poems in the Acoma language, he draws on life experiences over the past ten years—recalling time spent in academic conferences and writers' colonies, jails and detox centers—to convey something of the personal and cultural history of dislocation. As an American Indian artist living at times on the margins of mainstream culture, Ortiz has much to tell about the trials of alcoholism, poverty, displacement. But in the telling he affirms the strength of Native culture even under the most adverse conditions and confirms the sustaining power of Native beliefs and connections: "With our hands, we know the sacred earth. / With our spirits, we know the sacred sky." Like many of his fellow Native Americans, Ortiz has been "out there somewhere"—Portland and San Francisco, Freiburg, Germany, and Martinique—away from his original homeland, culture, and community. Yet, as these works show, he continues to be absolutely connected socially and culturally to Native identity: "We insist that we as human cultural beings must always have this connection," he writes, "because it is the way we maintain a Native sense of existence." Drawing on this storehouse of places, times, and events, Out There Somewhere is a rich fusion taking readers into the heart and soul of one of today's most exciting and original American poets.
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Combining Native American history, personal confession and social critique in a clear, conversational style, Ortiz tends to avoid metaphor and elaborate language or fixed poetic structures. The first of five sections centers on time spent in diverse institutions: the academy, writers' colonies, various academic conferences, jail and detox centers. In "Headlands Journal," an essay that mixes poetry and prose, Ortiz begins with a meditation on Native populations in prison, moves to tell a story about three visiting Chinese artists and then by the end of the essay addresses his anger when someone calls the Acoma Pueblo language "foreign." The series "What Indians?," written for the Venice Biennale, addresses with humor and anger the control that the dominant culture has over Native American self-representation: "Real or unreal. Real and or unreal. They were made up. It didn't matter." Those who turn to Ortiz's work for its mixture of insightful, no-nonsense political analysis and poetry rooted in Acoma culture will be more interested in the last three sections of the book. There are numerous poems about the importance of the land and of the continuing struggle to regain the land, such as "Telling and Showing Her" and "Acoma Poems," printed in both the Acoma Pueblo language and English. If, as in poems like "Beauty All Around: A Moment on the Lakota Prairie," Ortiz moves too easily from the sunset ("beauty all around me") to a series of questions about cultural appropriation, this book still asks crucial questions as much as it argues for beauty. (Mar. 14)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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"Ortiz expresses anger and despair in poems that nonetheless are permeated by gentleness and in which silence is every bit as eloquent as words. His meticulous use of repetition and rhythm ensures that the reader feels the pulse of his words and therefore understands them with more than mere intellect." —Booklist "Combining Native American history, personal confession and social critique in a clear, conversational style . . . insightful, no-nonsense political analysis and poetry rooted in Acoma culture . . . asks crucial questions as much as it argues for beauty." —Publishers Weekly "Although his words often seem innocent, the observations he makes could only come from one who has known the harshness of the experience. . . . This work ultimately shows us those moments of heightened awareness in which we finally know why we say yes to the private journeys we take through our various geographies and landscapes." —Southwest Book Views "An accomplished veteran poet at the height of his powers. . . . Ortiz's extraordinary command of his material and authority of voice makes Out There Somewhere a major work. His personal engagement with a state of exile in the larger culture, of being Acoma, is compelling and energetic." —Multicultural Review "As always, Ortiz's work is beautiful, profound in its simplicity and sincerity." —North American Review
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This review is from: Out There Somewhere (Sun Tracks) (Paperback)
The "stars" of American Indian literature--James Welch, Leslie Silko, Scott Momaday--are only the beautiful surface of the genre. Dive deeper, and you will find treasures like Peter Blue Cloud, Ray Young Bear, Anita Endrezze, and the incomparable Simon J. Ortiz. Ortiz writes with a brilliance and clarity all Americans could aspire to, and this little collection of pieces, modulating from the grim depths of alcoholism and prison to the open spaces filled with joyful children, is representative of his work. His meditation on a sparrow's nest is worth the cover charge, discussion of the place of English in the mind of the Indian artist ("Beauty All Around") is a model of deeply felt exposition, and the cycle of poems on whether Indians exist is both witty and tragic. Taste the best, a literary flavor perhaps too exotic for the general reader, but worth the adventure. This is a writer to remember and return to.
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