LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2003
Poetry Presentation Summary

Poetry: Simon J. Ortiz, “Travels in the South”

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Rosalyn Mack

Discussion recorder: Alcira Molina 

            Simon Ortiz has the distinction of being the one of only a few full-blooded Native American poets today.  He grew up in the Acoma Village, speaking the Acoma language until age six.  At six, he began attending the United States government’s McCartys Day School, where he and his classmates were forbidden to speak their native language.  If they were caught speaking Acoma they were physically punished but the children continued speaking the language “surreptitiously in the classroom and openly on the playground unless teachers were around.” (Simon Ortiz Woven Stone)

            In 1954, Ortiz’s father moved the family to Skull Valley, Arizona and Ortiz began to understand what it meant to be a minority; he states he learned words like “segregation” and “discrimination” during this time.  (Simon Ortiz Woven Stone)

            In the 1960’s Ortiz began to become aware of the plights of Native Americans and he also began to become politically active although this all had a very negative effect on him.  “I wanted us to fight back with a strong sense of our culture, language, and identity, and it seemed to me that we weren’t doing so – at least not in my estimation.  My concern turned inward and became too thoughtful, alienated, egotistical, and careless…I also began to drink heavily for the first time.”  (Simon Ortiz Woven Stone)

            Ortiz served in the Army during the 1960s but there is no indication that he fought during the Vietnam War.  He also attended several different colleges during this time, eventually focusing on writing as his vocation.  He currently lectures, writes and makes appearance across the United States, sharing his poetry, writings, and insights about the Native American experience.

            Ortiz’s writings are highly autobiographic, including his current recovery from alcoholism, his divorce and his children.  His poetry is a wonderful blend of the imaginative and the realistic.  His poem, Travels in the South, explores the irony of being Native American today. 

The poem exposes the near invisibility of Native Americans; even those who are supposed to know where the Natives are, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Agent in Dallas, can’t be bothered to keep track of them properly.  And yet Ortiz sees them in construction sites and on street corners, and speaks with them.  He understands their feelings of invisibility and frustration because they are not invisible. 

Ortiz finds instances where the tribal name lives on but the people have long since disappeared.  He marks a state park ranger’s failure to know anything about the Indian tribe his park is named after.  The ultimate irony within all this is that it’s a hotdog vendor who can actually name and point out the direction of an actual Indian chief.  And with that the reader is shown that the government’s attempts to isolate and minimize the Native American population only works so far – the government’s agents (BIA agent and park ranger) are unaware of the Native American but people can still find them if they look.

In the end, Ortiz concludes that “Indians are everywhere” and often find the crumbs they are offered stale and uninviting.

Poetry Presentation and Discussion: Simon J. Ortiz

Simon J. Ortiz is a Native American Acoma Indian and a prolific writer. At a young age the poet attended a day school that forbade he and his fellow classmates to speak in their native tongue. This inspired Ortiz to feel the ties to his ancestry more deeply and the young boy was so enamored with words and language that his father nicknamed him “the reporter”. Ortiz claims that his poetry is largely autobiographical and that his experiences as a recovering alcoholic have helped mold his work. 

CLASS DISCUSSION:

Rosalyn: One of the things I really noticed about this poem is that he packs a lot of emotion into the last line of every stanza. If you read them separately they make an entirely different statement about the American Indian experience in America. For example, when he speaks about cutting the head off the terrapin after sundown, I feel that he is referring to the tenacity of the Native Americans who haven’t experienced sundown yet and who don’t want to let go. The poem has a very conversational tone---like a travel letter. 

Alcira: The poem is interesting in that it has that self-consciousness that is so much a part of the dichotomy of minority literature; on the one hand the poet is proud of his heritage and culture but on the other, one still feels a hint of the downtrodden, of the lack of self-confidence---Ortiz worries about his clothing and his hair---the comes across trip as not altogether pleasant.

Jennifer: I really felt that at the end, when he’s feeding the birds.

Rosalyn: It’s interesting that all of these officials that should know something about the Indians can offer very little, and yet the guy at the hotdog stand randomly volunteers that he knows a chief. I think the bread at the end of the poem is a metaphor for the white man—white, kind of stale.

Professor White: And that the Indians get the scraps. It is humorous and reminiscent of the Gentile asking Jesus whether his people might get the scraps from the main table. There is an incongruity to the humor—something doesn’t quite fit.

Jennifer: I remember the Coushatta reservation from my childhood but now it is gone and the casino’s there instead.