Analyzing Ortiz's Poems

Hunger, is a human instinct, that comes from deep within the heart. It is a form of solitude and deprivation that no one can completely understand nor quench. Ortiz’s poems shows the culture of his people through a man torn between two identities, both Indian and American lifestyles. As Simon’s craving longed to fit into both societies , he addressed the origin of human culture and how Indians and Americans differ ethically, but share the same world. Through the power of writing, Ortiz also introduced social issues, humanity crises, and politics into his one-of-a-kind poem. The ironic and sad tone of the poem can be contracted with prolonged humor hidden beneath the surface. Living on a Native American reserve located near Albuquerque, New

Mexico, the racial tensions of Ortiz’s childhood and his experiences of the outside world influence the poem “Hunger in new York City” ,which contains topics concerning one’s search for identity.
Since Ortiz is a Native American, he has had a sentimental and deep connection to Mother Earth since childhood. He is linked to the Acoma Pueblo people and declared that “As a writer, I’ve tried to consider most importantly, my life as a Native American who is absolutely related to the land and all that means culturally, politically, personally” (‘Hunger in New York City’). The tales that caught Ortiz’s attraction as a young boy were stories of people and their social situation, especially the Indians and their struggles to fit into modern society. During high school, Ortiz was a prosperous scholar. After graduation, he then enlisted in the United States army between 1963 to 1966. (‘Simon J. Ortiz’). When Ortiz completed his line of duty, he attended the University of New Mexico and was immediately intimidated by the new and boisterous city life around him (‘Simon J. Ortiz’). Everything was so different from the society that Ortiz once knew. In Ortiz’s final years of college, he was concerned about the social affairs addressing Native American’s issues and culture (‘Simon J(oseph) Ortiz’). Ortiz suddenly realized that it is slowly dehumanizing. For too long, Native Americans have been discriminated and forced to cowered in their own land; the loss and diminishment of a culture may seem unimportant, but it is a crucial problem for others (McAdams). Now in modern society, their history and culture are still being differentiated by distorted misunderstandings-both in the media and literature world (McAdams). During an interview with Janet McAdams, Ortiz had proclaimed “Indigenous literary conditions have lagged in development...due to lack of attention and recognition, i.e...resulting from discrimination by mainstream academia and critics” (McAdams). Ortiz was then drawn to the responsibility of maintaining the importance of not just his identity, but his ancestors as well. Since Ortiz knew English was the main cultural force in the United States, he decided to pursue the art of poetry.
This particular poem uses personification, which is the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, to express hunger. At the beginning of the poem, Ortiz began with the hunger crawling from an outside origin. According to Ortiz, hunger seems to be “creeping in from the outside, from the concrete or the land” (“Overview: ‘Hunger in New York City”). Ortiz uses the word crawl to describe how the hunger approached the narrator, which prompt him to seek for something more. The hunger does not only ask the narrator for food, but for his memories, past experiences, and wisdom. The hunger wanted the narrator’s identity. At first, the hunger had only signified its needs with easy questions. But almost immediately, the narrator faced a bigger issue. As said in “Hunger in New York City,” “The scope of his search suddenly broadens over two cultures and into his people’s past” (“Hunger in New York City”). The more important things that hunger asked for were essentially the narrator’s need, which were his memories from childhood to adulthood. It was not food, water, or shelter, but it’s crucial for human survival; both physically and emotionally. Ortiz also gave the audience an imagery of the desolated city. The hunger could not be satisfied by the concrete, bright lights, polluted air and noise. The narrator had made every effort to feed himself, but he simply could not quench the hunger from within. He is “unable to answer these questions of heritage, the speaker explains that he has been looking in all the wrong places” (“Hunger in New York City”). In the last stanza, the narrator asked mother earth to “bless me,” which indicates that the culture of his people help feeds his search for identity in an alienated city.
The poem starts with the idea of the narrator “feeding himself with the hunger,” this connects to Ortiz’s identity as an Acoma Pueblo Native American.

Ortiz’s identity, which include his childhood memories and past experiences, is a piece of history embedded within Ortiz from one place to the next, no matter where he goes. It helps the poem develop a strong connection to Ortiz’s past and current identity. In the second stanza, the hunger asks the narrator for the world you know. The world is the home that Ortiz once lived in, which is on Acoma Pueblo. The hunger also seeks the narrator out as if to remind him of what he wants the most: his true self. The hunger in the poem is actually a longing for his homeland created by being in an uncanny, urban city. As stated in “Simon J(oseph) Ortiz”, Ortiz had noticed that teachers “encouraged the Indians children to abandon their cultural ways and adapt a more American lifestyle” (“Simon J(oseph) Ortiz”) during his childhood years. The deep connection Ortiz has for his past outrank the importance of modern society. No matter where he is or what he’s doing, Ortiz can never escape the yearning and craving he has for his people. This justify how person’s past influence their future and present actions by demonstrating Ortiz’s fondness of his culture. Oritz loves his identity so much that he “served as an instructor of creative writing and Native American literature” (“Simon J. Ortiz”). His intriguing culture is what sets Ortiz apart from other people and it is what he finds peace in. The hunger is reflected as a homesickness, and it’s what Ortiz had felt throughout most of his

life.
Simon Ortiz takes what matters the most in society and connects it to the little things in life. And this is the sort of action that captures people’s attention. Ortiz is a man divided by two identities, both of which are valuable to him. The spiritual absence the narrator had felt when he was staying in the city shows an individual who has not only lost his identity, but his memories, family, and friends as a whole. Ortiz makes readers ask a question no one has the answer to: What is one’s true identity? Is it based one’s skin color? Or is it something that’s more complicated, such as one’s past life? All of this represented the rich background that Ortiz had managed to find tranquility in.