[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Good afternoon, everybody.
My name is Dan Carpenter.
I teach in the government department here at Harvard.
And I direct the social sciences program in academic ventures
at the Radcliffe Institute.
I want to begin by acknowledging the Wampanoag, Massachusetts,
and Nipmuc peoples on whose homelands we gather today.
And before turning to the Layli Long Soldier poetry event,
I want to give you, first, a welcome on behalf
of the Radcliffe Institute and on behalf of our dean,
Lizabeth Cohen, who cannot be with us today,
and also just to offer a remark.
What is happening today, this poetry series,
this event with Layli Long Soldier and others
are part of a larger collaboration,
between the Radcliffe Institute and the Harvard University
Native American program, to enhance
the visibility, the presence the continuance of native peoples
at Harvard University, in collaboration
with the native communities in our midst
and in keeping with what we hope is
a much better embrace of Harvard's responsibilities,
under its charter, to engage with, collaborate with,
and continue the presence of native communities.
That includes past events in this poetry reading,
including an appearance by the Anishinaabe poet Gerald Vizenor
and the Navajo poet Luci Tapahonso in recent years,
by the 2016 conference "Native Peoples, Native Politics,"
by Monday's event, "Citizen Indigenous,"-- which I hear
was a grand success.
I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it--
and by an ongoing research project.
And I'm listing just a few of many ongoing collaborations,
again, between Radcliffe and HUNAP,
called the Digital Archive of Native American Petitions
in Massachusetts, which is in the process,
in the coming weeks, of publishing over
500 Native American petitions currently
in the Massachusetts archives online,
from the 1640s to the 1870s.
This is a collaboration that has been enriching and educational
for Radcliffe.
I hope it's been somewhat that for HUNAP.
We're proud to be collaborating with HUNAP.
And we intend to do so for years to come.
I want to now turn over the event to Dr. Nick Estes.
Nick Estes is a member of the Lower Brule Sioux tribe.
He's Kul Wicasa from the Lower Brule Sioux tribe.
And in 2014, he founded the group the Red Nation
in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Red Nation is a native-led political organization
committed to revitalizing indigenous kinship relations
and combating anti-indigenous violence in all
of its manifestations, whether from police or prisons,
discrimination in off reservation spaces,
against native women, youth, and LGBTQ2 issues.
He is currently a doctoral candidate
in American studies at the University of New Mexico.
But actually, to update that-- apologies-- he
is the American Democracy fellow at the Charles Warren
Center for North American history,
here, at Harvard, and assistant professor
in American studies at the University of New Mexico.
And I'm sorry I butchered something there for certain.
But you can get me back another time.
So it is with honor and pride that we welcome Layli Long
Soldier today.
But first, Dr. Nick Estes.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
I want to again recognize the original homelands
of the Massachusett peoples as well as the shared territory
of the Wampanoag and Nipmuc.
I also want to extend a thank you to HUNAP
for supporting this and keeping these kinds of events
going at Harvard University.
Having been here for just under a year,
I have a profound appreciation for the kind of work
that people like Shelly and Jason do here.
And I also want to thank the Radcliffe Institution.
And I'm saying these thank yous, because I've never introduced
a fellow Lakota writer before.
So it's a big deal for me.
And it couldn't have been more of a privilege
to introduce one of our own such,
as Layli Long Soldier, who is a citizen of the Ogallala Lakota
Nation.
And from what I understand, this year's theme,
for the Radcliffe Institute, is citizenship and belonging.
And Layli holds a BFA, from the Institute
of American Indian Arts, and an MFA from Bard College.
She has served as a contributing editor of Drunken Boat.
Her poems have appeared in the American Poet, the American
Reader, the Kenyon Review Online, and other publications.
And she is the author of the chapbook, Chromosomory,
and Whereas, which won the National Books Critics Circle
Award and was a finalist for the National Book Awards.
And in 2015, Layli was awarded the National Artist Fellowship
from the Native Artists and Cultures Foundation
and a Lannan Literary Fellowship for her poetry.
And without further ado, please give a warm
welcome to Layli Long Soldier.
[APPLAUSE]
- Thank you so much, Nick.
Layli [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
First of all, before I start, I want
to say I forgot to bring my other glasses.
So I can't see the best.
So I'm going to do my best here.
I'm going to start off with some poems about grass,
because the sky is gray outside.
And we've had some snow.
And it makes me want something a little warmer right now.
So we'll start there.
Oh, goodness.
[LAUGHS]
"Look."
"The light grass body whole wholly
moves a green hill 'til I pull stalk 'n root up
from black matte soil bed.
Beads from grass heads, one by one a part
I split grass wires, little bulbs, silver green drop
lets I sentence to life less light quick dead grass
skulls, weight less pile, dry mound in cupped palm.
What have I done?
What now to do?
Why this impulse to shake the dead light?
Why do I so want the light to blink, look alive, move?
Why do I so want it still?"
I wrote that.
I wrote a lot about grass in this book.
And a lot of that was because, at the time when
I wrote most of these poems, I was living in the Four Corners,
on the Navajo Nation.
And when I would go up north to visit my family,
always, the first thing that represented home
was the grass, the smell and the sight of it.
And then, when I would come back to the Four Corners,
Southwest, that was the first thing I would miss
is the grass.
But I noticed that--
And this little poem was kind of like about the dark side
of myself.
As much as I love the grass, the first thing
I noticed I would do, when I would go up north,
is grab a handful and then pick it apart.
And one day I said, what is my problem?
Why so destructive?
[LAUGHS]
"Steady Summer."
"Solstice grasses, see this one's a natural anesthetic,
he said.
When they fast, they cannot food.
Careful water so slide, grass needle tips
around the edges of wounds this summer.
Potent grass songs, a grass chorus moves.
Shhh.
Through half-propped windows, I swallow
grass scent, the solstice.
Makes a mind wide.
Makes it oceanic blue, a field in crests,
swirling gyres, the moving surface fastened in June light.
Here I'm certain that certain kinds of talk only equal pain.
Excusing myself, I paddle grass waves.
I'm safer outdoors than in.
In those heady grasses, the mouth loosens, confesses.
I don't trust nobody but the land, I said.
I don't mean present company, of course.
You understand, the grasses hear me, too, always.
Present the grasses.
Confident grasses, polite--" excuse me.
Excuse me.
"--polite command to shhh.
Shhh, listen.
At the bottom of trailer steps, grasshoppers power up,
plate bodies, jet wings knock knock high speed
thru a swaying green page, single-spaced, blades bold
hollow stems, air italics.
Shhh.
In midday open, two horseflies love-buzz,
a simple humid meeting, motorized sex
in place, then loose again, infinite circle eights.
Shhh.
Listen.
Down the path, Auntie steps onto the porch.
The dog pads across wood planks, a pause to nudge her foot.
Shhh.
In my thoughts, I hear her, two states away,
ask for more mac 'n cheese.
This is good, Dad, my favorite.
Their forks click in blue gardens, flowered borders,
scrubbed second-hand plates.
Shhh.
This grass shhh.
[MUSICAL CELLPHONE RING]
Shhh."
What an interesting exchange.
[LAUGHTER]
Good timing.
"Who have I become?"
I have something to say quickly about that piece.
I'm having a little conversation, right now.
Well, I'm a little behind.
But we started this conversation between myself
and Solmaz Sharif.
Are you familiar with her work?
And she has a piece where she uses the word "whereas"
repetitively, as well.
So we're kind of discussing our work with that language.
But she was talking a little bit about the use
of the erotic in her work and how important that was in order
to kind of humanize her position in the world and her people,
that humanization.
And so, anyway, I really appreciated that.
And I was thinking--
but I couldn't help but think, oh, have I done that in my work
at all?
Is there that presence?
And I couldn't think of any instance.
And the closest I got was two horseflies [LAUGHS]
in this piece.
[LAUGHS] Too embarrassed
I think that I'm going to actually move on and read
from the second part of my book, which
is the self-titled section, "Whereas."
And that is where I respond to the national apology
to Native Americans.
So I think I'll start off with the introduction
to that section.
Just in case you don't know much about that apology,
it's a little background.
On Saturday, December 19th, 2009,
US President Barack Obama signed the Congressional Resolution
of Apology to Native Americans.
No tribal leaders or official representatives
were invited to witness or receive the apology on behalf
of their tribal nations.
President Obama never read the apology aloud, publicly,
although, for the record, Senator Brownback,
five months later, read the apology to a gathering of five
tribal leaders.
Bearing in mind, there are over 560 federally recognized
tribes.
So 5 out of 560, I think, is less than 1%.
The apology was then folded into a larger, unrelated piece
of legislation, called the 2010 Defense Appropriations Act.
[LAUGHTER]
So [LAUGHS] yeah, that was me, too.
Yeah.
[LAUGHS]
I mean I understand that that's how things get moved through.
But it says a lot.
So my response is directed to the apology--
excuse me, the apology's delivery, as well as
the language, crafting, and the arrangement of their written
document.
"I am a citizen of the United States.
And I am enrolled.
I'm an enrolled member of the Ogallala Lakota tribe,
meaning I am a citizen of the Ogallala Lakota Nation.
And in this dual citizenship, I must work, I must eat,
I must mother, I must friend, I must listen.
I skipped one.
I must art.
I must observe.
Constantly, I must live."
"Whereas when offered an apology, I watch each movement,
the shoulders high or folding, tilt of the head,
both eyes down or 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, quote, "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?"
"Whereas a friend senses what she calls cultural
emptiness in a poet's work.
And after reading, she feels bad for feeling bad for the poet,
she admits.
I want to respond, the same could
be said for me, some sticky current of Indian emptiness.
I feel it not just in my poems, but when
I'm on drives, in conversations, or as I lie down to sleep.
But since this dialogue is about writing,
I want to be correct with my languageness.
In a note following the entry for "Indian"
an Oxford dictionary warns: do not
use "Indian" or "Red Indian" to talk
about American native peoples, as these terms are now
outdated; use "American Indian" instead."
[CHUCKLES] I'm so grateful to know that.
Thank you.
[LAUGHTER]
"So I explain, perhaps the same could
be said for my work, some burden of American Indian emptiness
in my poems, how American Indian emptiness surfaces
not just on the page but often on drives, in conversations,
or when I lie down to sleep.
But the term "American Indian" points--" excuse me-- "parts
our conversation, like a hollow, bloated boat
that is not ours, that neither my friend nor I
want to board knowing it will never
take us anywhere but to rot.
If the language of race is ever really attached to emptiness.
Whatever it is, I feel now has me in the hull, head, knees,
feet curled, I dare say, to fetal position,
but better stated as the form I resort
to inside the jaws of a reference."
That piece I read was actually the first piece
I wrote for this whole series.
I remember being frustrated, at home,
when this apology came out.
I had a lot to say about it.
I had never really written work that
was overtly political or directly political.
But one day I decided--
I thought-- I felt so frustrated.
I was like, well, there's a lot that I cannot do.
But one thing I can do is write.
I can do that.
So I'm going to do it.
So I remember sitting down, and that was the first piece.
And I got out the dictionary-- that was the first thing I
did--
to look up "Indian" to see how it is defined, in the Oxford
dictionary, of all things, and to see
what is used to refer to me, in that case, you know?
But anyway, I remember it getting done
and feeling really--
it felt good.
It felt good to get to write something.
But as soon as I was done, I realized
that one piece was not enough.
It would not be enough.
So I ended up writing 28 pieces.
[LAUGHS]
So I'm going to read a piece.
Now that I read about how we're referred to in English,
this is a piece how we understand ourselves,
at least Lakota people, which is a very different feeling
to say, I'm American Indian.
Actually, I never say that.
But to say that is a very different feeling than to say,
I am Lakota.
And that's something we've called ourselves
for much longer.
"Whereas I did not desire in childhood to be a part of this
but desired most of all to be a part,
a piece combined with others to make up a whole, some
but not all of something.
In Lakota it's onspa, a piece or part of anything,
like the creek trickling behind my auntie's house, where Uncle
built her a bridge to cross from bank to bank, not
far from a grassy clearing, with three tipis, a place to gather.
She holds three-day workshops on traditional arts.
Young people from Kyle and Potato Creek
arrive, one by one, eager to part-ticipate.
They have the option, my auntie says,
to sleep at home or return in the morning.
But by and large, they'll stay and camp even
during South Dakota winters.
The comfort of being together.
I think of Plains winds, snow drifts, ice,
and limbs, the exposure.
And when I slide my arms into a wool coat
and put my hand to the door knob,
ready to brave the sub-zero dark,
someone says, be careful out there.
Always consider the snow your friend.
Think badly of it, snow will burn you.
I walk out remembering that for millennia, we
have called ourselves Lakota, meaning "friend or ally."
This relationship to the other, some but not all,
still our piece to everything."
When I was working on this response,
I started researching apologies around the world, even
other US apologies.
There was a whole apology to native Hawaiian people,
for example.
There was an apology, in Canada, to First Nations
people for the residential schools and so on.
So that was something I was thinking about a lot,
meditating on.
And then I also thought a lot about apologies in my own life.
And I wrote this piece.
This is, actually, I would consider
the heart of this book.
It was probably the most effective apology
I've ever had.
And this is about my dad.
"Whereas I heard a noise I thought was a sneeze.
At the breakfast table, pushing eggs around my plate,
I wondered if he liked my cooking, thought
about what to talk about.
He pinched his fingers to the bridge of his nose,
squeezed his eyes.
He wiped.
I often say he was a terrible drinker when I was a child.
I'm not afraid to say it, because he's different now,
sober, attentive, showered, eating.
But in my childhood, when things were different,
I rolled onto my side, my hands together, as if to pray,
locked between my knees.
When things were different, I lay there
for long hours, my face to the wall, blink.
My eyes left me, my soldiers, my two scouts to the unseen.
And because language is the immaterial,
I never could speak about the missing,
so perhaps I cried for the invisible, what
I could not see, doubly.
What is it to wish for the absence of nothing?
There, at the breakfast table, as an adult
wondering what to talk about, if he liked my cooking, pushing
the invisible to the plate's edge,
I looked up to see he hadn't sneezed.
He was crying.
I'd never heard him cry, didn't recognize the symptoms.
I turned to him when I heard him say,
I'm sorry I wasn't there, sorry for many things.
Like that curative voicing, an opened bundle
or medicine or birthday wishing, my hand to his shoulder.
It's OK, I said.
It's over now.
I meant it.
Because of our faces blankly, because of a lifelong stare
down, because of centuries in sorry."
You guys want to hear my mad poem?
When I get mad, it's really hard for me to say anything,
sometimes, right in the moment.
I don't know.
I'm so slow, too.
You know, like I can't think on my feet all the time.
I have to go home and like stew in it, you know?
And then I come up with the perfect--
so then I just write about it.
So that's my way of getting mad.
I'm really mad.
[TYPING SOUNDS] [LAUGHS] I'll write a poem.
Shall I read my mad poem?
[LAUGHS] It's best you get, sorry.
"Whereas a string-bean blue-eyed man leans back
into a swig of beer, work-weary lips at the dark bottle,
keeping cool in short sleeves and khakis,
he enters the discussion.
Whereas his wrist loose at the bottleneck,
he comes across as candid.
Well, at least there was an Apology, that's all I can say,
he offers to the circle, each of them scholarly.
Whereas under starlight, the fireflies
wink across East Coast grass."
Yes, I was on the East Coast.
[LAUGHS]
"I sit there, painful in my silence, glued to the bench,
in the midst of the American casual.
Whereas a subtle electricity in that low purple light,
I felt their eyes on my face gauging a reaction.
And someone's discomfort leaks out in a well-stated, hmm.
Whereas like a bird darting from an oncoming semi,
my mind races to the Apology's assertion."
Quote-- so this is from the National apology.
"While the establishment of permanent European settlements
in North America did stir conflict
with nearby Indian tribes, peaceful
and mutually beneficial interactions also took place.
Whereas I cross my arms and raise a curled hand
to my mouth, as if thinking.
As if taking it in, I allow a static quiet,
then choose to stand up.
Excusing myself, I leave them to unease.
Whereas I drive down the road replaying the get-together,
how a man and his beer bottle stated their piece.
And I reel at what I could have said or done better.
Whereas I could've but didn't broach
the subject of "genocide," the absence of this term
from the Apology and it's rephrasing
as "conflict" for example.
Whereas since the moment had passed, I accept what's done.
And the knife of my conscience slices
with bone-clean self-honesty.
Whereas in a stirred conflict between settlers and an Indian
that night in a circle.
Whereas I struggle to confess that I didn't
want to explain anything.
Whereas truthfully I wished most to kick the legs of that man's
chair out from under him.
Whereas to watch him fall backward, legs flailing,
beer stench across his chest.
Whereas I pictured it happening in cinematic slow-motion,
delightful.
Whereas the curled hand I held to my mouth
was a sign of indecision.
Whereas I could have done it, but I didn't.
Whereas I can admit that also took place, yes, at least."
I'm going to close with this last piece.
This is a piece that I usually close with.
It is a resolution from the last section, "Resolution 2."
And in the resolutions, I have used the text
from the actual apology.
I hope I'm OK on time.
How?
OK.
So I have used the text from the actual "Resolution 2"
in the apology and sort of reworked it as my own.
"I commend this land and this land
honor this land Native this land peoples this land for this land
the this land thousands this land of this land years
this land that this land they this land have
this land stewarded this land and this land
protected this land this land this land this land this land
this land this this."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
- So thank you.
That was really beautiful and amazing.
We're going to open it up for some questions.
But first, I just wanted to offer some brief reflections
on this book but also the reading.
And you had talked about the 2010 apology resolution, which
was folded into a 1,000 page tome, National Defense
Authorization Act, which I believe totaled somewhere
around $685 billion for national defense, which, at the time,
was the largest defense appropriations
bill, not just in US history but in world history.
And so I think there is of a lot of tension that you bring out,
in this idea that this apology is folded
in with a sort of military defense appropriations bill,
but, also, that it was signed into law by President
Obama at the same time that he reversed the US
decision or the US vote against the UN Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
And he accepted the UNDRIP, as we call it for short,
on the condition that it was non-binding.
And so in the language of the apology resolution,
there's this tension of a non-binding sort of aspect,
that there will not be redistribution of land
or the restoration of things lost.
And so, as you were reading, I was kind
of thinking about this tension.
And you were you were talking about apologies.
And it got me thinking about Crow Dog,
for example Ex parte Crow Dog, in which Crow Dog murdered
Spotted Tail and then made restitution, for his family,
for the taking of a relative.
And then the US government stepped in and said,
we have jurisdiction.
And this apology is null and void,
and thus we got the Major Crimes Act in 1887--
I can't remember the exact year.
I'm a historian, but, [LAUGHS] I know, it's really bad.
But I was just thinking about all of these things and the way
that your book is really speaking to these things.
And you had told me, in a conversation just a little
bit ago, that I'm trained in the certainty of documents,
whereas you are sort of open to not knowing and feeling.
And so I just wanted to maybe ask
you to reflect on that a little bit
and the readings that you just gave,
and this notion of apology and reconciliation,
if there was no conciliation to begin with.
- Hmm?
[LAUGHTER]
There's like a few different things
to address there at once.
Right.
Well, maybe I'll talk a bit about the work.
I'll talk about what I know, which is the work of the poet.
And even at that, I know a little bit.
[LAUGHS] There's so much more.
So when it came to, let's say, this aspect
of this particular document that I was working with,
which was this national apology, there are so
many ways to approach it.
But I think that's one of the things we were talking about
in your office, earlier.
All of us in the community have different ways of working
and the jobs that we're doing.
So I am not an essayist, for example.
I'm not a historian.
In fact, I have a piece in here where I clearly state, bear
in mind, I am not a historian, right?
I make that crystal clear, because I
know the tendency of readers to take any particular story
and make it THE story.
There is a great danger in that.
This is one telling and one perspective.
And it's from a poet, at that.
So poets are like, hmm?
You know you have to give that--
[LAUGHS] We have our ways of telling, telling its slant,
right?
But I think like with this--
and so given that, as an artist, I
think I had to think of how could I approach
this great document, how could I approach anything that
was directly political that in a way
that worked for me as an artist?
Because I'm not a legal expert.
Even sitting here, and you are giving this little account
of Crow Dog and Spotted Tail.
I was like, wow, this is great.
I could just sit here, and you could give a talk.
I just loved it.
So there's so much that each--
different kinds of knowledge that each of us carries, right?
But, of course, there's that--
I've heard that common saying, if mankind
were a body, a physical body, poets would be the skin.
We're the ones who feel.
So we feel.
And that's part of what I think my job is, as a poet,
as an artist.
I am here to feel for you.
So I had maybe a basic structure to work with,
this legal document.
But it is my job to--
I felt like I wanted to enter it in a way of thinking about,
how does this make me feel?
How does this language make me feel?
Even the "Resolutions," which are not anecdotal,
necessarily-- like all of the "Whereas" pieces, most of them
are prose blocks, and a lot of them
are anecdotes from my own life.
That's one thing.
But even the "Resolutions," which are more visual pieces--
you don't have the book, do you, right in front of you?
A lot of them are visual pieces.
So, for example, I even have one in here
that is shaped like a hammer, I think.
Let me see.
Where is it?
Good lord, this is my book, and I can't find it.
Here it is.
So I have a piece that's like a hammer.
But even those pieces, I felt like my intention
was to show what I feel how this text affects me as a reader.
And so then that's kind of what I was doing.
I don't even know if I answered your question.
Did I?
- No, I think the structure of the book,
with the "whereas" statements, and, for us,
as historians, when we read documents--
in the resolution, there's always
the sort of preamble, which is the whereas, the whereas,
the whereas, the whereas, setting up
the reason for the resolution in the first place.
And so I guess, as somebody who reads a lot of those documents,
it was something that really meant a lot.
It was speaking to me.
I felt like it was speaking to me.
And you and I had this conversation
about the idea of drawing from collective memory
and how we interpret textual documents.
And you had said something that really
stuck with me in the sense that you do use Lakhotiyapi,
or the Lakota language, and that it's surrounded
by English words on the page.
And how these documents, for us, whether it's
treaties or agreements that were made,
were made orally, entirely through the oral tradition,
and were remembered that way.
I don't know if you want to speak to that.
- Well, I think what you're saying is very beautiful.
And I want to spend more time thinking
about it, the orality of these agreements.
Only because I'm thinking about when I taught at a tribal
college, Diné College.
I think I was talking, earlier today,
about teaching a reading class.
That's one of the main classes I taught.
The very first thing that--
and this was fundamental reading.
So it was a course to kind of get students up
to college-level reading.
So we would dive in.
And we read.
I tried to have them read different kinds of writing.
The very first document we would jump into was their treaty.
And it was very difficult language.
In some ways, some of it is archaic language.
It's not language that we use, some of the phrasing.
And of course, it's also legalese, kind
of this governmental language.
It's not easy for them.
But I would say, it's OK.
If it's not easy, we'll take it slowly.
And we'll do it, together, in groups, article by article.
You two, you take article one.
That's all I want you to do is read it together.
And you come back.
And you report to us what you know about it.
And then bring in examples from your own family
or your own knowledge, something that applies
to this particular article.
And that's how we would take it.
And one of the things we would do, also, at the same time,
is go online.
And we would look up the actual treaty.
There's online archives, and you can usually
see the original documents.
And we would go and look at the very last page
of the signatures by the leaders.
So we would go online.
And this is Navajo Nation.
This applies to ours, Treaty of 1868, and what have you.
And we would look at it.
And I would say, what do you notice
about this, that all of the leaders' names
are listed and so on?
But what's one of the first things you notice?
And sometimes it would be quiet.
But anyway, the point I was making
is all of those signatures are Xs, all of them.
And that's us, too, up north, they're all Xs.
So that is the first thing we would think about.
And what are the implications of that?
What does that mean?
When our grandfather-- and I can say that some of us
have grandfathers who signed those agreements.
What does that mean?
We would have a whole class on what the X means.
You know, to see that?
But really, then I would say to them,
OK, listen, we're at a different time now.
None of us have to be in that position ever again.
I don't want any of us to be in that.
So that's why we're starting, right now,
with your treaty, because it's the place of power.
Language is a place of power.
Have the language at your command.
Now, I don't know.
Did I answer your question again?
- You did.
- Whoo, I went way off there.
Oh, the verbal?
The orality of it?
[LAUGHTER]
That is also what I'm very interested in.
- Because if you read the treaty out loud,
it sounds really wonky.
I mean it doesn't make a lot of sense.
But I mean the way that it's passed
down, from generation to generation,
is that it was translated into Lakota.
Well, for us, it was translated into Lakota and Diné bizaad
for Navajo.
And then it was translated into English.
And then it was re-translated back into Lakota.
And it would go back and forth.
And we had an understanding of what it meant.
And then whether or not that was what was finally written
on paper, we had no idea.
Because we couldn't read it.
- Absolutely.
And it makes me think also of the Maori.
This is what I understand.
If my telling is wrong, forgive me.
But I used to work at the Language Institute--
no, the Indigenous Language Institute for some years.
And we had some people from the institute
visit the Maori people to talk about how
they were able to help their language grow.
In any case, one of the things I learned from that visit--
I was transcribing notes--
is this renewal of Maori rights, land rights,
which came back to their original agreement
with the Crown.
And it all came down to the translation of one
word, "sovereignty--" one word.
And they were able, these young Maori lawyers
were able to come and prove that there
was no direct translation into Maori language
for that particular word.
And there is no way their leaders
would have agreed to that.
That is not a concept, not something
that is practiced in their culture, complete sovereignty
over a particular area or what have you.
So beautiful.
And I was saying, I wish we could do that, you know?
But anyway, that's another subject.
- I just wanted to ask one more thing,
because I was thinking a lot, as you were reading it.
And it's much different to hear you read the poetry than it
is to read it on the page.
And one thing that I was reminded about--
and we talked about this in my office,
but you actually read the piece, the "Whereas" piece talking
about Lakota meaning "friend or ally."
And in this case, you were talking
about a snowstorm and the cold.
And you'll get burned if you try to push against.
And I was thinking of this testimony
given by Phyllis Young, who is a council woman at Standing
Rock, when the Dakota Access Pipeline was meeting
with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
And she said, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],,
I am Dakota.
Dakota means "friend or ally."
And she was saying this to the North Dakota officials,
that you are not friends or allies to the Dakota people.
You are not friends or allies to the land, and to Dakota Access,
for taking the name of a nation, to be against the land.
And so I was just like, I'm going to deep now [LAUGHS]
into what you were writing.
So I really, really appreciated that.
As we were talking about, you're dealing
with the tensions in language.
And I think there's another level of understanding.
And here were talking about the other
than human element of the Lakota language.
- Yeah.
Yeah, the relationship and understanding that, right?
As we were saying earlier, to be an ally, to be a friend,
extends far beyond just a people.
It is everything.
We could talk about that for a long time, yeah.
- Should we open it up to the audience?
I don't know if there's-- is there a microphone?
I can't-- OK.
She's bringing it around.
And I just want to remind everyone,
if you have a question, please make it
a question and not a statement.
And also, try to keep it relevant to the talk tonight.
[LAUGHTER]
- Thank you so much.
My question is about the piece you were just talking about,
ally, friend, and earlier in that piece
you talked about part in a way that struck me
as being perhaps different from what I have received
as a European descended person, which part, as a verb,
means to sunder.
And I think your part was in many ways bringing together,
sometimes bringing together things named
and sometimes bringing together across something that I
didn't understand.
So I'm hoping I can persuade you to talk
about part a little bit.
- I mean, I think that, for me, it's just
kind of like a sensibility.
If anything, one of the things that I appreciate
most about Lakota sensibility is this idea
of being a part of things, that all of us,
in any doing or any effort, we are all coming in.
We're contributing something.
We're a part of that.
And I think the other part, the other thing
to that is always an acknowledgment of everyone's
part.
I don't know.
I'm losing my train of thought here.
I know that when I wrote that piece, I mean,
I was really just meditating I guess.
Because I had just written the other piece
about how we understand ourselves
as Indian or American Indian, the dictionary, and so on.
So in that regard, when I began working on that piece,
I was really meditating on this idea
of what it is to be Lakota, yes, friend and ally.
But I think it's also this idea for me, at least,
always that we are a part of a greater whole, a community,
a family, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
Like that is always how we understand ourselves.
It is not an existence that is I, an alone existence,
a very individual existence.
No, it is an existence that is always connected to others.
And so, really, that's kind of what I was getting at, I think.
- Thank you.
- Hi, there.
Thank you for being here.
Appreciated your acknowledgment that you're not a historian.
But I do think that your poem "38" has the potential
to really sear that incident into our consciousness in a way
nothing else has before.
And I'm wondering if you would just
talk a little bit about how that poem came to be
and what was involved in the writing of it.
Thank you.
- So I had heard that story when I was much younger.
It was kind of like a verbal account, something
I'd heard a long time ago.
And it always stuck with me.
And what was most resonant about that story
was the actual moment of finding Andrew Myrick's body,
and that, when they found him, his mouth
was stuffed with grass.
That was the moment that made a huge impression on me
as a young person.
So as I got older, I mean, there came a point
when I felt like I really, really wanted to--
I wanted to write about that.
There was something about it that was just,
I mean, I guess calling to me, like I
needed to write about that.
But I didn't know how.
I didn't know how to approach it.
So that actually took me a long time
to really come to what the best form would be
and the best telling.
So one of the things I came to first
was that the way I heard the story, the telling I heard,
was very straightforward.
It didn't need a lot of embellishment.
Like just what happened was enough to make an impact.
So I realized, OK, that was the first thing in that piece.
I did not need to embellish it and make it poety and even
create a fictional character or anything.
I didn't need that.
I didn't need to do that.
So then I realized, OK, the facts sometimes,
just as they are, are enough.
So that was an important part of drafting that piece.
I decided to have a very straightforward, dry tone.
And therefore, I decided to have the sentence
as the primary carrier of the poem.
And then, of course, there's the dual meaning of sentence
within that piece, right?
You have the death sentence and the sentence,
the grammatical sentence.
So that seemed to work well.
And once I kind of got myself into the form,
then the wheels started moving.
And I started researching.
I read different accounts of that moment.
Some of them very--
I say it in the piece.
They're slightly different, but they all kind of
have the same telling.
I mean they're slightly different.
There's a lot that I didn't--
I had to be decisive in what I would include.
There were a lot of interesting facts around that time
that I did not include.
It's already a six-page poem.
So I had to, at some point, pick and choose
what was most important to me.
And so part of that process was readers.
Once I had a draft that was, I felt,
kind of where I wanted it to be, I
had several native poets and a Dakota writer--
people that were, I felt, knowledgeable and could give me
good feedback--
look at it.
All together, that piece took about two years to complete.
So it was not a rush job.
I wanted to get it right if at all possible.
- We have time for one more question.
- Hi.
Thank you so much.
So when you were answering Nick's second question,
it made me think about how much of your book
is kind of about translation.
So there are the poems near the beginning
of the book, where you're sort of unpacking Lakota words.
And then the "Whereas" section is basically
translating the apology from government into human.
And that made me think about something
you said earlier, where you said the poet's job is to feel.
And I guess the two things sort of smushed together in my head.
And so, basically, I thought maybe
that's implying that a poet's job is to translate reality
into feeling.
And that connected to something from the first or second poem
that you read, where you were talking
about feeling in your poem and how feeling is something
with the senses, with the body.
So my question is, when you're writing a poem,
when you're feeling, do you have a sense that you use more?
Do you see a poem more or do you hear it?
- Oh.
Uh-huh.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, that's interesting.
OK.
OK.
I'm going to come--
first, I'm going to say something that is not
quite an answer, but it is.
First, I will say, often, with students that I'm working with,
I will say, for me, art or poetry
is a way of thinking out loud.
So you would think that thinking and feeling
are in contrast to each other, but they're not.
For me, it's the same.
But it is a way of thinking out loud.
These poems are my way of thinking.
So the piece I read, about being a child and sitting on my side
and thinking, laying like this, that was an activity for me
as a child.
[LAUGHS] That was like, I did that.
Like that was so weird.
But it was like actually a thing.
And it wasn't until I got older that I said, oh, my god,
there's actually a use for that, which is something
that I have done all my life.
So I'll sit and ponder the word "circuitous."
Like what's up with that?
I think it's such a beautiful word, you know?
And here we go.
I became.
I have a piece where circuitous had to be in that piece.
I wrote the whole piece for that word.
[LAUGHS]
Because it needed to be there.
There's a sound.
So now let's get to the senses.
There is a sound, a sound that is pleasing to me.
And I want to unravel that.
I wrote a whole piece on the word "opaque."
Because, for years, I thought opaque might see-through,
the opposite, right?
And I was very upset to learn it was not see-through.
And I sat and pondered why did I think opaque means see-through
all these years?
And it was the sound.
It sounds-- oh, pee, ay, kay-- let's say, a kah.
I dissected that in the poem to understand
how those sounds translated to mean see-through to me.
So maybe it's a combination of all those things
I'm working with.
A lot of sound now that I'm talking to you about it, yeah.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- So that concludes the discussion.
And I just want to thank Layli, again, for coming out here.
It's such a gift for everyone, the book as well as the talk.
And so [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
- Oh, thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
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