An assessment of Black Elk's poetry reveals that Indians' attitudes toward words differ from ours. For example, on certain occasions Indian songs become instruments which bring an influx of energy into a whole society or draw rain or heal sickness. Words which recreate or conjure the agents of the poet's vision are relevant because they uplift the…

The author of this article provides a critical assessment of Simon J. Ortiz's collection of poetry, "Out There Somewhere," to see how this literature of resistance continues through cultural connections. The resistance one finds in the poems--against mainstream political, social, and economic forces--results in continuance of Ortiz's…

This article examines Surrealism, its definition, and history through example. Special emphasis is on James Welch, a Blackfeet poet from Montana with a comic way of viewing the world in a surrealistic fashion. (RTS)

This paper examines fragments of American Indian and Greek poetry and suggests that they be used in English composition classes as examples of the power of language. Because the poetry is brief and deceptively obvious, it invites careful examination of the expressive meaning of each word. It is concluded that, in an age when people are inundated…

Presents a bibliography of reading materials, fiction, and poetry, that may be used in language arts classes to dispel some of the misinformation about Native Americans. Provides a list of some of the elements that could be included in an educational unit on Native Americans. (TB)

In the early 1970s James Welch enters American literature as an Indian postmodernist, a fractured classicist of the West, drawing fragments from both sides of the Buckskin Curtain. Reading the likes of Cesar Vallejo and early modernists from Ezra Pound to Theodore Roethke and decreationists such as Ray Carver (through Richard Hugo's tutelage at…

Contemporary Native American poets have a continuing influence on American poetry through the introduction of elements of oral tradition and through their concern with spirit. Indian poets use oral tradition in various ways; their concerns with the story may have affected the movement to reestablish the narrative line in poetry. (CM)

Four Native American poets in easy narrative style tell about some of the aesthetic judgments they make in their work and, in the process, shed some light upon the traditions from which their poetry emerges. Joy Harjo discusses how she wrote "The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window," her use of repetition influenced by music…

A discussion of the life and work of Yaqui poet Refugio Savala includes analysis of selected poems, "corridos," and original and traditional tales. The article includes a discussion of the style, content, tone, and background of his English language autobiography and explains the editing which occurred prior to its publication. (SB)

The article uses an interdisciplinary approach to reexamine the literary form and merit of a Zuni ritual narrative poem from the midwinter Shalako ceremonies. After describing the poem's cultural context, the article addresses its shape, structure, language, and style. The article includes the English language text of the poem. (SB)

Explores major themes in contemporary American Indian poetry that comprise the Native ethos of cultural resistance and survival. Correlates certain themes of Indian poetry with those of Black spiritual and blues. Discusses Western and Indian world views, political and social conflict, and art as the agent of criticism and change. Contains 28…

This bibliography and supplement on American ethnic writing provide extensive listings of materials by or about Afro-Americans, American Indians, Hispanic Americans, and Orientals. The areas covered are novels, biography, autobiography, poetry, drama, art, folklore, music, films, records, periodicals, anthologies, bibliographies, criticism,…