Native American Poems Showdown: Ortiz vs. Momaday, Hogan vs. Bitsui, and More

List of Poems Match 1. Ortiz vs. Momaday 2. Hogan vs. Bitsui 3. Alexie vs, Zepeda 4. Cordero vs. Bush 5. Burns vs. Harjo 6. Henson vs. Bruhac 7. Crow vs, Long Soldier 8. Red Elk vs. L. Erdrich 9. Diaz vs. Wilson 10.Frazier vs. H. Erdrich 11.Pico vs. Posey 12.Walbourne-Gough vs. Arnott

MATCH UP 1 Dawn Prayer for All BY SIMON J. ORTIZ Acoma Pueblo The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee BY N. SCOTT MOMADAY Kiowa/ Cherokee Right before dawn, in the blue light of it, I look for the horses but they aren t there. Only the winter trees, thick along the creek. Everything is still, not even birds move. Only a pain in my chest under my right breast. Pulling muscle, something engorged, I m afraid of its motion, the turn I awaken to daily. The horses must be beyond the creek, feeding in the frozen meadow. I ll not wait for them. I am a feather on the bright sky I am the blue horse that runs in the plain I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water I am the shadow that follows a child I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows I am an eagle playing with the wind I am a cluster of bright beads I am the farthest star I am the cold of dawn I am the roaring of the rain I am the glitter on the crust of the snow I am the long track of the moon in a lake I am a flame of four colors I am a deer standing away in the dusk I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche I am an angle of geese in the winter sky I am the hunger of a young wolf I am the whole dream of these things My knowledge is only human, only my eyes see what is to be seen, and beyond that is more yet it is not within my ken. I can t see death yet know its presence well, even its posture prior to it. Pain is not death, I allow that. For that I am grateful to my mind, the memory ancient, not lonely or unreasonable. Pray then for the blue light of morning that draws me toward the day. Pray then for the horses, for the presence of all things, for the pain. You see, I am alive, I am alive I stand in good relation to the earth I stand in good relation to the gods I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte You see, I am alive, I am alive

MATCH UP 2 The Truth Is LINDA HOGAN Chickasaw Girl, I say, it is dangerous to be a woman of two countries. You've got your hands in the dark of two empty pockets. Even though you walk and whistle like you aren't afraid you know which pocket the enemy lives in and you remember how to fight so you better keep right on walking. And you remember who killed who. For this you want amnesty and there's that knocking on the door in the middle of the night. In my left pocket a hand rests on the bone of the pelvis. In my right pocket a white hand. Don't worry. It's mine and not some thief's. It belongs to a woman who sleeps in a twin bed even though she falls in love too easily, and walks along with hands in her own empty pockets even though she has put them in others for love not money. Relax, there are other things to think about. Shoes, for instance. Now those are the true masks of the soul. The left shoe and the right one with it's white foot. About the hands, I'd like to say I am a tree, grafted branches bearing two kinds of fruit, apricots maybe and pit cherries. It's not that way. The truth is we are crowded together and knock against each other at night. We want amnesty. Linda, girl, I keep telling you this is nonsense about who loved who and who killed who. Here I am, taped together like some old civilian conservation corps passed by from the great depression and my pockets are empty. It's just as well since they are masks for the soul, and since coins and keys boh have the sharp teeth of property.

MATCH UP 2 Atlas SHERWIN BITSUI Navajo How many Indians have stepped onto train tracks, hearing the hoofbeats of horses in the bend above the river Tonight I draw a raven s wing inside a circle measured a half second rushing at them like a cluster of before it expands into a hand. I wrap its worn grip over our feet as we thrash against pine needles inside the earthen pot. veins scrawled into words on the unmade bed? In the cave on the backside of a lie soldiers eye the birth of a new atlas, He sings an elegy for handcuffs, whispers its moment of silence at the crunch of rush-hour traffic, and speaks the dialect of a forklift, lifting like cedar smoke over the mesas One more mile, they say, one more mile. acred to the furthest block. Two headlights flare from blue dusk --the eyes of ravens peer at Coyote biting his tail in the forklift, shaped like another reservation-- another cancelled check. One finger pointed at him, that one--dishwasher, he dies like this with emergency lights blinking though the creases of his ribbon shirt. A light buzzed loud and snapped above the kitchen sink. I didn t notice the sting of the warning: Coyote scattering headlights instead of stars; howling dogs silenced by the thought of the moon; constellations rattling from the atmosphere of the quivering gourd. .

MATCH UP 3 The Powwow at the End of the World SHERMAN ALEXIE Spokane/Coeur d Alene Carrying Our Words OFELIA ZEPEDA Tohono O odham I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Dam and topples it. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after the floodwaters burst each successive dam downriver from the Grand Coulee. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after the floodwaters find their way to the mouth of the Columbia River as it enters the Pacific and causes all of it to rise. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after the first drop of floodwater is swallowed by that salmon waiting in the Pacific. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after that salmon swims upstream, through the mouth of the Columbia and then past the flooded cities, broken dams and abandoned reactors of Hanford. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after that salmon swims through the mouth of the Spokane River as it meets the Columbia, then upstream, until it arrives in the shallows of a secret bay on the reservation where I wait alone. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after that salmon leaps into the night air above the water, throws a lightning bolt at the brush near my feet, and starts the fire which will lead all of the lost Indians home. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after we Indians have gathered around the fire with that salmon who has three stories it must tell before sunrise: one story will teach us how to pray; another story will make us laugh for hours; the third story will give us reason to dance. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall when I am dancing with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world. We travel carrying our words. We arrive at the ocean. With our words we are able to speak of the sounds of thunderous waves. We speak of how majestic it is, of the ocean power that gifts us songs. We sing of our respect and call it our relative. Translated into English from O odham by the poet. U a g T- i ok T- i ok att an o u akc o hihi Am ka:ck wui dada. S-ap am o a: mo has ma:s g kiod. mat am ed.a betank i-gei. Am o a: mo he es i-ge ej, mo hascu wud. i:da gewkdagaj mac ab amjed. beh g e i. Hemhoa s-ap am o a: mac si has elid, mo d. i:mig.

MATCH UP 4 Everything Needs Fixing KARLA CORDERO Chichimeca/ Chicana Her Voice BARNEY BUSH Shawnee/Cayuga in your thirties everything needs fixing. i bought a toolbox for this. filled it with equipment my father once owned to keep our home from crumbling. i purchased tools with names & functions unknown to me. how they sat there on their shelf in plastic packaging with price tags screaming: hey lady, you need this! like one day i could give my home & everything living inside it the gift of immortality, to be a historical monument the neighbor s would line up to visit even after i m gone & shout: damn that s a nice house! i own a drill now, with hundreds & hundreds of metal pieces i probably won t use or use in the wrong ways but what i m certain of, is still, the uncertainty of which tools repair the aging dog, the wilting snake plant, the crow s feet under my eyes, the stiff knee or bad back. & maybe this is how it is how parts of our small universe dissolve like sugar cubes in water a calling to ask us to slow our busy breathing so we can marvel at its magic. because even the best box of nails are capable of rust. because when i was a child i dropped a cookie jar in the shape of noah s ark, a family heirloom that shattered to pieces. the animals broke free, zebras ran under the kitchen table, the fractured lion roared by the front door & out of the tool cabinet i snagged duck tape & ceramic glue. pieced each beast back to their intended journey. because that afternoon when my father returned from work i confessed & he sat the jar on the counter only to fill it with pastries. how the cracks of imperfection mended by my hands laid jagged. chipped paint sliced across a rhino s neck. every wild animal lined up against the boat & a flood of sweet confections waiting inside. I hear her voice like tornado warning chimes It is limestone bluff still alive Limestone clinks at waters edge Each clink a tone from creations ghostly voice Mortal voice inaudible murmur that keeps the wind that plasters spring moisture onto the walls of cliffs It is the smell of mud and river and holes that bring forth gusts from inside the earth She doesnt cry Her mind's footsteps still carry her across the gift She still hums the songs covers her eyes at gravesites Stairs across behind folded arms into the precision of past events The ceremony her voice when the giveaway was the beginning of life.

MATCH UP 5 Sure You Can Ask Me A Personal Question DIANE BURNS Chemehuevi/ Anishinabe Yeah, it was awful what you guys did to us. It s real decent of you to apologize. No, I don t know where you can get peyote. No, I don t know where you can get Navajo rugs real cheap. No, I didn t make this. I bought it at Bloomingdales. How do you do? No, I am not Chinese. No, not Spanish. No, I am American Indi uh, Native American. No, not from India. No, not Apache No, not Navajo. No, not Sioux. No, we are not extinct. Yes, Indian. Thank you. I like your hair too. I don t know if anyone knows whether or not Cher is really Indian. No, I didn t make it rain tonight. Oh? So that s where you got those high cheekbones. Your great grandmother, huh? An Indian Princess, huh? Hair down to there? Let me guess. Cherokee? Yeah. Uh-huh. Spirituality. Uh-huh. Yeah. Spirituality. Uh-huh. Mother Earth. Yeah. Uh huh. Uh-huh. Spirituality. No, I didn t major in archery. Yeah, a lot of us drink too much. Some of us can t drink enough. Oh, so you ve had an Indian friend? That close? Oh, so you ve had an Indian lover? That tight? This ain t no stoic look. This is my face. Oh, so you ve had an Indian servant? That much?

MATCH UP 5 This Morning I Pray for my Enemies JOY HARJO Muscogee (Creek) And whom do I call my enemy? An enemy must be worthy of engagement. I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking. It s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind. The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun. It sees and knows everything. It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing. The door to the mind should only open from the heart. An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

MATCH UP 6 Day Song LANCE HENSON Cheyenne Prints JOSEPH BRUCHAC Abenaki perhaps on a sunday like today under the sound of a lone bell Seeing photos of ancestors a century past perhaps in the brightest snow of the year or in autumn while the leaves are in their last clothes is like looking at your own fingerprints someone will lie down feeling in his blood a singing wind that in all his days he has witnessed only once circles and lines you can't recognize until someone else with a stranger's eye looks close and says that's you. when dust stopped on the shivering road and looked into the mirror

MATCH UP 7 REVIVAL STEVE CROW Cherokee from Whereas LAYLI LONG SOLDIER Oglala Lakota Snow is a mind falling, a continuous breath of climbs, loops, spirals, dips into the earth like white fireflies wanting to land, finding a wind between houses, diving like moths into their own light so that one wonders if snow is a wing's long memory across winter. WHEREAS when offered an apology I watch each movement the shoulders high or folding, tilt of the head both eyes down or straight through me, I listen for cracks in knuckles or in the word choice, what is it that I want? To feel and mind you I feel from the senses I read each muscle, I ask the strength of the gesture to move like a poem. Expectation s a terse arm-fold, a failing noun- thing I scold myself in the mirror for holding. Because I learn from young poets. One sends me new work spotted with salt crystals she metaphors as her tears. I feel her phrases, I say, and Understand me, and I wonder. Pages are cavernous places, white at entrance, black in absorption. Echo. If I m transformed by language, I am often crouched in footnote or blazing in title. Where in the body do I begin;

MATCH UP 8 She Was Fed Turtle Soup LOIS RED ELK Fort Peck Sioux Nation Her heart will live with turtle strength. Her life will be long and purposefully directed. Her song will be like the cool breeze moving tall willows above eddies remembering motion. The willows were turning green, slips of leafs pointing to one another in a slow tempo soothing the air with whispers of coming water. Her feet were bare and the earth cool while a loose hem feathered her ankles for her walk. Bracing on stems for the gradual pace to not disturb all the sleeping turtles, she wished for sunlight in a shade of green to hurry growth and to keep her hidden. How close could she lean into the memory of relatives who lived this life of damp shells and slow demeanor without alerting them of her intent. All of grandma s voices were now shaking her sleepy mind and begging her return to answer the details of her dream. It was the call of tradition that signaled the next step to seal the new experience into her life basket. She will be served turtle's energy for her growth. Off of grandma's favorite tree a knot was cut and shaped into a bowl. Handles in the shape of young turtles were carved into the sides. Into the cottonwood bowl was poured the prepared soup with essence of memory from a life once lived. Thanking all that came before this earth life, was her detailed prayer. A calling of all water animals to witness the taking of one energy to give to the energy of another, a child who passed the test of recalling ancient blood. In the Dakota/Lakota culture the story of the turtle carries a life of longevity and purposeful living. We make turtle amulets out of deerskin and present them to new mothers who have female babies. The prayer and promise with the amulet is that the child will have a long, purpose-filled life. A small portion of the baby's dried umbilical cord (the last connection between the mother and baby) is sewn into the amulet and kept with the child s clothing. The prayer and knowledge is that the turtle spirit now cares for the child spirit. Also, when the child matures and has their first dream, they are fed turtle soup. The dream is always good and reveals a lesson or purpose for the child. We celebrate with the child by telling them that the turtle spirit and energy, in the soup, is transferred into the child and will guide and protect the child in and through their dreams. Lois Red Elk

MATCH UP 8 Indian Boarding School: The Runaways LOUISE ERDRICH Ojibwe (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) Home s the place we head for in our sleep. Boxcars stumbling north in dreams don t wait for us. We catch them on the run. The rails, old lacerations that we love, shoot parallel across the face and break just under Turtle Mountains. Riding scars you can t get lost. Home is the place they cross. The lame guard strikes a match and makes the dark less tolerant. We watch through cracks in boards as the land starts rolling, rolling till it hurts to be here, cold in regulation clothes. We know the sheriff s waiting at midrun to take us back. His car is dumb and warm. The highway doesn t rock, it only hums like a wing of long insults. The worn-down welts of ancient punishments lead back and forth. From the 19th through much of the 20th century, Indian boarding schools sought to civilize indigenous children through education and assimilation. Students were often forcibly removed from their families. Once at school, they were stripped of their traditional clothing and their hair was cut short. Students were given uniforms and Christian names. Students suffered beatings for speaking their own language and praying in their own ways. Indian boarding schools were rife with abuse and disease. The US Interior Department reports found that more than 500 indigenous children died in such schools between 1819 and 1969 with numbers expected to rise as marked or unmarked burial sites at 53 schools are investigated (2022). All runaways wear dresses, long green ones, the color you would think shame was. We scrub the sidewalks down because it's shameful work. Our brushes cut the stone in watered arcs and in the soak frail outlines shiver clear a moment, things us kids pressed on the dark face before it hardened, pale, remembering delicate old injuries, the spines of names and leaves. It was not until 1978 with the passing of the Indian Child Welfare Act that Native American parents gained the legal right to deny their children s placement in off-reservation schools.

MATCH UP 9 And what other kids? Why I Hate Raisins NATALIE DIAZ Mojave and Pima Everyone but me, I told her. She said, You mean the white kids. And is it only the mouth and belly which are injured by hunger and thirst? You want to be a white kid? -Mencius Well too bad cause you re my kid. Love is a pound of sticky raisins I cried, At least the white kids get a sandwich. packed tight in black and white At least the white kids don t get the shits. government boxes the day we had no That s when she slapped me. Left me groceries. I told my mom I was hungry. holding my mouth and stomach She gave me the whole bright box. devoured by shame. USDA stamped like a fist on the side. I still hate raisins, I ate them all in ten minutes. Ate but not for the crooked commodity lines too many too fast. It wasn t long we stood in to get them winding before those old grapes set like black around and in the tribal gymnasium. clay at the bottom of my belly Not for the awkward cardboard boxes making it ache and swell. we carried them home in. Not for the shits I complained, I hate raisins. or how they distended my belly. I just wanted a sandwich like other kids. I hate raisins because now I know Well that s all we ve got, my mom sighed. my mom was hungry that day, too, and I ate all the raisins.

MATCH UP 9 "Sisseton" by Bobby Wilson Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate

MATCH UP 10 Pastoral SANTEE FRAZIER Cherokee De'an HEID E. ERDRICH Ojibwe (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) stark is the wood stove in the dark its bulbous hull a womb of popping embers simmering corn filling the house with a nutty perfume what sounds but guzzle of a pumped well the gushing water against the metal stark is slowness scything of grass chucking grain toward chickens low bark of hounds gnats backlit by the sun their flight pattern scattered in gold song of exoskeleton zoom of the june bug s wings lifting itself from the screen door and off to the damp night far away roar of tire bucking junk in the truck bed slow sputter and buzz of a mower echoed in the gully the radio whispering a piano that vibrated gospel when it uttered Dogs so long with us we forget that wolves allowed as how they might be tamed and sprang up all over the globe, with all humans, all at once, like a good idea. So we tamed our own hearts. Leashed them or sent them to camp s edge. Even the shrinks once agreed, in dreams our dogs are our deepest selves. Ur Dog, a Siberian, dogged the heels of nomads, then turned south to Egypt to keep Pharaoh safe. Seemed strange, my mother sighed, when finally we got a hound, . . . a house without a dog. Her world never knew a yard un-dogged and thus unlocked. Sudden intrusions impossible where yappers yap. Or maybe she objected to empty armchairs, rooms too quiet without the beat of tail thump or paw thud. N de, Ojibwe say, my pet, which also suggests ode, that spot in the chest, the part you point to when you pray, or say with great feeling great meaning, meaning dog-love goes that deep.

MATCH UP 11 Coyote ALEXANDER POSEY Muskogee (Creek) You can t be an NDN person in today s world TOMMY PICO Viejas You can't be an NDN person in today's world A few days more, and then There ll be no secret glen, Or hollow, deep and dim, To hide or shelter him. and write a nature poem. I swore to myself I would never write a nature poem. Let's be clear, I hate nature hate its guts I say to my audience. There is something smaller I say to myself: And on the prairie far, Beneath the beacon star On evening s dark ning shore, I ll hear him nevermore. I don't hate nature at all. Places have thoughts hills have backs that love being stroked by our eyes. The river gobbles down its tract as a metaphor but also abt its day. The bluffs purr when we put down blankets at the For where the tepee smoke Curled up of yore, the stroke Of hammers rings all day, And grim Doom shouts, Make way! downturn of the sun and laugh at a couple on a obvi OkCupid date and even more stellar, the jellybean moon sugars at me. She flies and beams and I breathe. The immemorial hush Is broken by the rush Of armed enemies Unto the utmost seas. F* that. I recant. I slap myself. Let's say I live in NYC. Let's say I was the first person in my family to graduate college. Let's say UGH I like watching New Girl on Hulu. This is the difference: Some see objects in the Earth, where I see lungs. Sky mother falls thru a hole, lands on a turtle. Hole is my favorite band.

MATCH UP 12 Ella Josephine Campbell DOUGLAS WALBOURNE-GOUGH Mi'kmaq (First Nations) smoke and last week s gossip. Nights she won, Slim, slight. Sinew and bird bones. she dropped by the Padarnac Lounge to chat Cords of her hands like spruce roots. with her brothers, a quick rum n coke Came from Ship Cove to Crow Gulch warms the blood for the walk home. with little more than the child inside her, Get her in the woods, she was all business. landed in a small shack flanked by Frantic flick of the rod whipping the hackle off an outhouse, train tracks. Made it work, the fly long before trout ever could. Peals had to. No surviving a place like this of laughter against the far shore. No smooth arcs without some acceptance, some yield or figure-eight false casts, just enough line to the blunt force of what must be done. in the water to get wet. A woman most at home Lived for a dance on the weekend, game without ceilings, without walls. of Bingo during the week. Draped in her favourite sweater, blue-green swirls on black, three times her size. Costume pearls, earrings to match. Heading to the Palace, all tobacco

MATCH UP 12 world shapers JOANNE ARNOTT M tis (First Nations) creation stories are lullabies for grown-ups they remind us of all the possible ways & means that worlds can be born & humans come to be tricksters & goddesses fire & water the one god, or all of the gods working as a team worldmakers worldshakers worldbreakers there is no end to the doing & the undoing of our creators they have imagined us over & over & over recreating us & recreating our world on a whim there is no end to us, humans, either we keep re-inventing the cosmos & fighting one anothers visions with killing hands we have our feast times & our fast times our celebrations & our long days & nights of lament & yet we are not powerless, we adults, we humans we reinvent, we shape and reshape the world, every single day