Reader: Adelaide Socki
Respondent: Geri Spratlin
Recorder: Todd Wielichowski

“The New Apartment”

By Linda Hogan

Background Information on Poet:

            Linda Hogan was born in 1947 into a military family that moved often, and spent most of her time in Oklahoma and California.  She identifies herself as a member of the Chickasaw group, but did not grow up in a Native American community.  She is currently professor of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder where she received her M.A. in 1978.  She  received numerous awards and is recognized for her role in the development of Native American poetry.  Awards include being one of three finalists for the Pulitizer Prize in 1990 for her book Mean Spirit, the National Book Critics Circle award, Pushcart Prize and the American Book Award for Seeing Through the Sun in 1986.  Her interest focuses on the traditional, Native American, or indigenous view of and relation to the land, animals and plants.

Define one Term in Poem:

            One line of the poem refers to “Singing 49s.”  This is a type of non-ceremonial song that became popular with many contemporary Native Americans.  “49s” are often sung at the end of a pow-wow, formal dance, or at the end of a party.  They combine English Lyrics with native sounds or vocables into some ironic love songs.

Example of a 49:

o-oo-o-o-oo

oh yes, I love you honey

iya hana yo

I don’t care if you married sixteen times

I’ll get you yet

Hay-ha-a-a

Read Poem

Identify Parts of Poem That Address Class Objectives

            Objective 3b- Loss and Survival:

            The first half of this poem deals with Native Americans attempting to adjust to a constructed, urban environment, Minneapolis. They enter the apartment and everything is wrong, disjointed and this is the emphasis of the first part of the poem.  The third stanza sums up the feeling of loss they feel:

                        The house wants to fall down

                        the universe when the earth turns

This theme of loss/survival is also reflected in the following stanzas:

                        I think of Indian people here before me

                        and how last spring white merchants hung an elder

                        On a meathook and beat him

                        and he was one of The People.

Objective 5-Hear the Minority Voice

The last stanza above and the next stanza also deal with sharing the minority

voice and experience:

                        I remember this war

                        and all the wars

                        And relocation like putting the moon in prison

In the above live, many Native Americans view the moon as part of their world of kin, the world to which they are intimately related, and the moon acts as a metaphor for their personal history and current experience of displacement

Ojective 4- Assimilation or Resistance

Like all minority groups, Native Americans both assimilate to and resiste the dominant culture to a degree.  The lines below illustrate this point:

            but be warned, the moon grows full again

            and the roofs of this town are all red

            If we had no coffee,

            cigarettes, or liquor,

            says the woman in room twelve,

            they’d have a revolution on their hands.

           Analysis:

This poem can be understood by looking at the juxtapostion of the unnatural or urban imagery in the first half of the poem, with the nature imagery in the second half.    Word choice in the first part of this poem reflects the disunity or disjoined nature of their experience in Minneapolis as reflected in word choice: war, meat hook, burns, beat, coughs, drunk, hit.  The poet also uses metaphors to illustrate that this is not their world: inside the walls world changes are planned, bosses overthrown.  Again, this is not their world

In the second half of the poem, their experience comes together as a whole.  It feels complete, more peaceful.  It’s like the speaker takes a deep breath and says, as it states in the poem, “I am home.” Other phrases bring the reader back to nature with the speaker, “I have walked the dark earth.”  There is a unity of all creation as the speaker says:

 Hello aunt, hello brothers, hello trees

 and deer walking quietly on the soft red earth

This last stanza draws the reader into their ideal (idealized?) experience.

Questions:

1.      Is this an optimistic or pessimistic poem?

2.      What does some of the symbolism of the floor with burns, are we looking through walls, the earth of the deer?

3.      Why in the second half the poem with all the nature imagery is the phrase “drunk song” included?

NOTE:

Dr. White said the poem as a whole can be seen in terms of objective three: Loss and Survival (rather than my terminology Disunity and Unity). The first part with the disjointed urban imagery and tone reflects the loss, and the last half with the nature imagery and hopeful tone reflects survival.

Discussion

Adelaide: Is the poem pessimistic or optimistic?

Geri: I don't think it is either. It shows two sides being a Native American in the city. Nature is still out there, but it is locked away

Adelaide: I don't know what the last stanza means. It is like the reader is taking big breaths and then feels a lot better.

Blond Woman: To me she is saying the natural world is going to be part of the tradition forever. Even if they have to live in shabby homes and apartments.

Adelaide: It has a good, nice, peaceful mood and presents question two

Adelaide: a lot of symbolism to floors and walls, what is the symbolism in this?

Sara: everything is so light hearted, there always is a tad of sarcasm seen

Adelaide: Is the floor burning?

Dr. White: That interpretation goes with coughs of the dead man.

Annie: I took it as ghost or spirits living in the house

Geri: It seems like an assimilation to the songs. Their stories and traditions are sung, it is part of their story

Dr. White: It is anticlimactic

Geri: In our culture you have good and bad drunk stories. Even though they are kind of scary.

Jerry. It is seen as an acceptance.

Blond Woman: Alcohol was used by white settlers as weapon or tool against the native Americans.

Adelaide: They lack an enzyme [to metabolize alcohol] which makes them instant alcoholics

Dr. White: The conclusion is that the old world is surviving the dead world, but they never go back to the old world and that way of life. Drunkenness came with the Europeans, and it may survive the Europeans.

Adelaide: It is a necessity they need.