LITR 4332: American Minority Literature

Sample Student Poetry Presentation 2000

Reader: Mary Cardenas

Respondent: Paula Aydt

October 19, 2000

"Travels in the South"

by

Simon J. Ortiz

Unsettling America, pp. 278-281

 

  1. Biographical Information

    Simon Ortiz is a contemporary Native American writer who continues to be a strong voice in literature today. His many accomplishments include creating poems, short stories, essays, and children’s books. He grew up in the Acoma Pueblo community in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ortiz experienced the hardships of Native American and English cultures at a very early age. Ortiz is a full-blooded Native American and his first language was his native tongue of Keresan. If children in the mission schools were caught speaking in their native tongue they were cracked on their knuckles. As a result he found literature to be a way to express his frustration and passionate beliefs. Ortiz started writing in the 1960’s when equal rights and social justice were at the roots of everyday life. This timing proved successful because it provided a foundation of readers that wanted to "fix" our nation, both environmentally and socially. Readers can relate to his works because they reveal that, by introspection and experiences, anyone can learn from past experiences and gain personal growth.

  2. Course Objectives

    3b. Native American Indian alternative narrative: " Loss and Survival".

    5a. To discover the power of poetry and fiction to help "others" hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience.

    6. To observe images of the individual, the family, and alternative families.

    6a Minority groups place more emphasis on "traditional" or community aspects of human society.

  3. Angles of Interpretation
    • People have lost their connection with God and self by developing every available space, they are no longer one with the earth or the spirits of nature.
    • In a conflicted world, Ortiz’s tries to provide the reader with a temporary escape from turmoil or hope in dealing with societies.
    • The sorrow he felt on his journey to find Indians.
  1. The" Style Question"
    • Dialogue – The conversations between him and the folks he meets on his travels.
    • Rhythm – As he travels it moves pretty fast, but when he meets people it slows down.
  1. Discussion Questions
    • What makes "Travels of the South" different from most of the poems we have interpreted in class?
    • What part of the poem can you see survival?
  1. Additional Works Cited

http: //nativeauthors.com/search/bio/bioortiz.html

http://search.biography.com/print –record.pl?id=18170

htttp://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/1914-/lit/ortiz.html

Response: By Paula Aydt

I mentioned in regards to the poem the use of food imagery and how certain images were of single food items and others mentioned the fields. The use of the crumbs at the end of the poem – they were form white bread and the red squirrel refused them.

The piece from " The People shall continue" by Simon Ortiz.

All this time the people remembered. Parents told their children ‘ You are Shawnee. You are Lakota. You are Pima. You are Acoma. You are Tlingit. You are Mohawk. You are all these nations of people.

‘ The people looked around them, and they saw the black people, Chicano People, Asian People, many white people and others who were kept poor…. The people saw that these people shared a common life with them. They said ‘ We must make sure that life continues’. We must be responsible to that life. With that humanity and the strength that comes from our shared responsibility for this life, people shall continue."