Out There Somewhere (Volume 49) (Sun Tracks) - Softcover

Ortiz, Simon J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816522103 ISBN 13: 9780816522101

Publisher: University of Arizona Press, 2002

Synopsis

He has been out there somewhere for a while now, a poet at large in America.
 
Simon Ortiz, one of our finest living poets, has been a witness, participant, and observer of interactions between the Euro-American cultural world and that of his Native American people for many years. In this collection of haunting new work, he confronts moments and instances of his personal past—and finds redemption in the wellspring of his culture.
 
A writer known for deeply personal poetry, Ortiz has produced perhaps his most personal work to date. In a collage of journal entries, free-verse poems, and renderings of poems in the Acoma language, he draws on life experiences over the past ten years—recalling time spent in academic conferences and writers' colonies, jails and detox centers—to convey something of the personal and cultural history of dislocation. As an American Indian artist living at times on the margins of mainstream culture, Ortiz has much to tell about the trials of alcoholism, poverty, displacement. But in the telling he affirms the strength of Native culture even under the most adverse conditions and confirms the sustaining power of Native beliefs and connections: "With our hands, we know the sacred earth. / With our spirits, we know the sacred sky."
 
Like many of his fellow Native Americans, Ortiz has been "out there somewhere"—Portland and San Francisco, Freiburg, Germany, and Martinique—away from his original homeland, culture, and community. Yet, as these works show, he continues to be absolutely connected socially and culturally to Native identity: "We insist that we as human cultural beings must always have this connection," he writes, "because it is the way we maintain a Native sense of existence." Drawing on this storehouse of places, times, and events, Out There Somewhere is a rich fusion taking readers into the heart and soul of one of today's most exciting and original American poets.

About this title

About the Author

Poet, fiction writer, essayist, and storyteller Simon Ortiz is a native of Acoma Pueblo and is the author of numerous books.

Reviews

Combining Native American history, personal confession and social critique in a clear, conversational style, Ortiz tends to avoid metaphor and elaborate language or fixed poetic structures. The first of five sections centers on time spent in diverse institutions: the academy, writers' colonies, various academic conferences, jail and detox centers. In "Headlands Journal," an essay that mixes poetry and prose, Ortiz begins with a meditation on Native populations in prison, moves to tell a story about three visiting Chinese artists and then by the end of the essay addresses his anger when someone calls the Acoma Pueblo language "foreign." The series "What Indians?," written for the Venice Biennale, addresses with humor and anger the control that the dominant culture has over Native American self-representation: "Real or unreal. Real and or unreal. They were made up. It didn't matter." Those who turn to Ortiz's work for its mixture of insightful, no-nonsense political analysis and poetry rooted in Acoma culture will be more interested in the last three sections of the book. There are numerous poems about the importance of the land and of the continuing struggle to regain the land, such as "Telling and Showing Her" and "Acoma Poems," printed in both the Acoma Pueblo language and English. If, as in poems like "Beauty All Around: A Moment on the Lakota Prairie," Ortiz moves too easily from the sunset ("beauty all around me") to a series of questions about cultural appropriation, this book still asks crucial questions as much as it argues for beauty. (Mar. 14)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0816522103
• ISBN 13: 9780816522101
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176