Cat Or Stomp Literary Devices

In language in Society Journal, Anthony K Webster writes about understanding and studying the texts of Navajo poets. He uses three versions of the same poem, Cat or Stomp by Laura Tohe. There are 3 different styles she used for this one poem, one from the version in her book, which is orthographic, the other two are an oral performance, they both have been recorded and analyzed.

Laura Tohe connects to her readers, using her past hardships and poetry to get them to feel her emotion. The author talks about how Laura Tohe wrote this book in English, even though it was about Navajos and their journey through boarding schools. She wanted to connect to everyone and tell her story making sure it didn’t happen again. Since her main audience is white people who speak English and they are the ones who put many Navajos through this rough, traumatic time in their life.

Again, Webster is analyzing Laura Tohe, to have a better understanding of Navajo linguacultural. Paying attention to the way the poems shift when using written Navajo to ethnonym Diné. By showing how linguacultural changes the tone of the oral presentations and what they mean for the cultural and in real-time. As a result, leading to different

interpretations of the text.
The comparison between the poems is the structuring of the lines.

The first oral presentation was structured into three stanzas based on how long the speaker paused during the performance. The stanzas for the oral version do not correspond exactly with the written version, the stanzas are now unique in their own way. There are 35 lines in one of the oral performances verses 23 or 31 in the written version. While the second oral presentation has 25 lines rather than 35 lines. This goes to show how just by different interpretations of an oral presentation of a poem can affect the line size and structuring of the written version. Depending on who the speaker who is presenting the poem they may or may not interpret the poem ever so slightly in different

context.
All things considered, Webster has a valid point, reading verses hearing the poem could be an astronomical difference. As a result, the oral poem you could hear the emotion, feel it, while on paper you can only think of what the emotion would sound like. Although the poems are written in English, the have a specific aim to obtain the emotion and make white people feel guilty about what they have done. The same poem in three different versions could mean something else depending on the presentation of the poem. Poems have extremely diverse interpretations of the meaning, it all depends on who interpreted the poem and the audience.