Rather than subverting any particular structure, Long Soldier is leaping into new “not yet defined” spaces.

These amended and broken treaties are often referred to as The Minnesota Treaties. SoundCloud SoundCloud. / Therefore, I feel most responsible to the orderly sentence; conveyor of thought.”. Long Soldier grew up in the four corners region of the Southwest, where she continues to live and work to advocate against the continued, systematic oppression of indigenous populations. It is easy to forget that America is an occupied land unless you are familiar with the hundreds of treaties made between the United States government and over 560 federally recognized indigenous tribes across our nation. Listen to Layli Long Soldier’s On Being interview, “The Freedom of Real Apologies.”, Layli Long Soldier is the recipient of the 2015 Lannan Fellowship for Poetry and a 2015 National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation.

Her first book of poetry, WHEREAS, is a winner of the multiple awards including the Whiting Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award. By the end of “38,” Long Soldier has problematized the correctness of the sentence, revealing the violent capacity of language and the country whose mouth it fills: When the Dakota people were starving, as you may remember, government traders would not extend store credit to “Indians.”, One trader named Andrew Myrick is famous for his refusal to provide credit to Dakota people by saying, “If they are hungry, let them eat grass.”. This is called “38” and it is by Layli Long Soldier. Hers, with the unexpected twist that commentary can provide, giving added depth to a line, forcing you to return to it and read it again. Language matters. “38” begins with the following lines: “Here, the sentence will be … Rules and requirements for poetry and for historiography do not apply here. “38” begins with the following lines: “Here, the sentence will be respected. This poem, every word and every line, shouts this aloud. In the preceding sentence, I italicize “same week” for emphasis. In the same introduction, Long Soldier writes: “I am a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation — and in this dual citizenship, I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.”, Long Soldier’s affirmation as a dual citizen is important considering the less than rigorous practice of American literary criticism’s strategic and diminishing valuation of a writer’s “racial” or “ethnic” identity as part of or in place of a writer’s craft. She has built a poetics that refuses those boundaries, even when she engages with her Lakota identity. “Whereas” is an excavation, reorganization and documentation of a structure of language that has talked the United States through its many acts of violence. This is called “ 38 ” and it is by Layli Long Soldier. I will compose each sentence with care by minding what the rules of writing dictate.

Later in the poem, however, we get the pay-off to this set-up: In the preceding sentence, the word “starved” does not need italics for emphasis. “38,” which closes the book’s first section, highlights how Long Soldier writes poetry that treats history and poetry as living, unstructured, and unending things. The On Being Project is located on Dakota land. John Berger, in the essay “Once in a Poem,” describes poetry as both crossing battlefields and tending the battles’ wounded. (I had to bold it, since block quotes italicise everything, but you get the point). Nonetheless, I think both our points come across. Copyright © 2020.

Consider: The hanging took place on December 26th, 1862—the day after Christmas. In my last Thursday Poem entry, I spoke about Carolyn Forché’s ‘The Colonel’, and poetry of witness, the expression she coined. You may like to know, I do not consider this a “creative piece.”.