N. Scott. Momoday: The poet who broke barriers, N. Scott. Momoday was a Native American author who was born on February 27, 1984. He was of Kiowa origin and chose to focus his literary works, which were mostly poems, on his heritage. He is most well known for his novel House Made of Dawn, which is about a young Native American man who has recently come home from war to find himself torn between his Kiowa heritage and industrial America. House Made of Dawn won Momoday a Pulitzer prize, making Momoday the first Native American to receive this honor. He was born to Mayme ‘Natachee’ Scott Momoday and Alfred Morris Momoday. His mother was claimed to be of English, Irish and Cherokee descent and his father was of full Kiowa Origin. His father was …show more content…
As a part of Indigenous traditions, Momoday was taken to Bear Lodge Butte, which is a figure of igneous rock nicknamed “Devils Tower”, where he was given the Kiowa name of Tsoai-talee or Rock-Tree Boy. When Momoday was 12, he and his family moved to Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico, where he said he had a “Pan-Indian experience” where he encountered many traditions such as Navajo, Apache, and Pueblo. He uses this influence of heritage in his literary works to highlight the struggle faced within underrepresented communities. N. Scott Momoday unfortunately passed away on January 24, 2024 but he kept these values throughout his work and he continues to inspire young writers even through his passing. Some poems which exemplify this tradition include “The Snow Mare”, “Prayer for Words”, and “The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee”. Through Momodays use of literary devices in his poetry, he navigates the idea of cultural identity, revealing underrepresented themes of heritage and tradition which reveal a connection to his indigenous roots. P5: Explication 1 In the poem “Prayer for Words” by N. Scott Momoday, he uses the theme of protecting the earth countless times to send a message to the …show more content…
The sonnet delves into the idea of being at one with the earth and through his use of imagery as well as metaphor, Momoday creates a scene that demonstrates the power of nature. The poem starts off with an image set of a morning containing the beauty of the natural world, like “the wind bending the reeds” and “the patchwork of morning on gray moraine”. At the beginning, Momoday sets a tone of awe for the beauty of the world and the power it contains with his use of imagery. The narrator is assumed to be Momoday and through his own use of words, the audience is taken along with him on his journey. In the next stanza, Momoday incorporates more sensory details and imagery into his writing. He writes, “Had I words I could tell of origin,/Of God’s hands bloody with birth at first light,/Of my thin squeals in the heat of his breath,/Of the taste of being, the bitterness,/And scents of camas root and chokecherries” (Momoday 3-7). This description obviously references God and his creation of the earth. This also plays into the religious aspect of Momoday's work. Momoday practices Catholicism, which he incorporates into many of his
The Way to Rainy Mountain was written in 1969 by Pulitzer Prize winning author N. Scott Momaday. The novel is about Scott Momaday's Kiowa ancestors and their journey from the Montana area to Fort Sill near Rainy Mountain, Oklahoma, where their surrender to the United States Cavalry took place. In The Way to Rainy Mountain, Momaday traces his ancestral roots back to the beginning of the Kiowa tribe while not only learning more about the Kiowa people but rediscovering himself and finding out what his true identity is. The death of his grandmother prompts Momaday to dig deeper into the background of his family. To better help him become closer with his ancestral roots, Momaday returns to Rainy Mountain to visit his recently deceased grandmother’s grave where the spirit of the Kiowa tribe was thought to be very strong. Scott Momaday’s grandmother was believed to be the last of the Kiowa’s; with her death came the death of the Kiowa culture. Momaday wouldn’t let such a spiritual people who meant so much to him be forgotten so he created The Way to Rainy Mountain with this motivation. As Momaday works through each of the Kiowa’s mythical stories, he begins to learn a lot about his ancestors and, in turn, about himself. After reading the novel, it is evident to the reader that from beginning to end, Momaday has grown tremendously and has an increased sense of knowledge and appreciation for his Kiowa ancestors and their spiritual way of life. While Scott Momaday’s was creating his world renowned novel, The Way to Rainy Mountain, his relationship with past events greatly contributed to the overall meaning of the book in three major ways. During the novel, Momaday uses his recollections of the past to help understand Kiowa myths a...
His writing style techniques in both stories have a narrative structure, focalization, visual connection, social situation, imagery and themes of personal and collective crisis but a different point of view. Each piece describes the daily life of a Native American living on the reservation including himself, a place where tradition was fading because of the outside world of White Society. The perception of Native Americans provides an inside look at what they thought and how they lived their daily lives. Alexie illustrated the lives on reservations through his writing with the use of literary
In this essay, McFarland discusses Native American poetry and Sherman Alexie’s works. He provides an overview of Alexie’s writing in both his poems and short stories. A brief analysis of Alexie’s use of humor is also included.
McNickle, D'Arcy. "A Different World." Native American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology. Ed. Vizenor, Gerald. United States of America: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1995, 111-119.
In Momaday's work, the reader is on a journey through myth, past and present, as the author draws on oral traditions of Native American storytelling to align-in-parallel a personal journey for understanding of himself, and perhaps the nature of man. Through an inventive technique, Rainy Mountain serves as a way to collect, preserve and disseminate the oral storytelling traditions of Native American storytellers. Momaday has attempted to bridge the oral traditions to written form by weaving three continual strands as a single long braid throughout the text.
... He also adds personal experiences, which interests many readers. He knows from his schooling and experience how to engulf a reader and keep them glued to his stories. Ultimately completing his story, Scott Momaday infused many angles to the history of Kiowa, creating a multidimensional vision of what he was trying to portray. He used nature as the building block of his story and added different experiences and voices to build the story.
Alexie's poem "How To Write the Great American Indian Novel" blends several dilemmas at once. Underlying to the poem and the act of writing the `Great American Indian Novel' is the awareness in all Colored people of a catch-22: that they are seen solely as a reflection of how White America views them. In the case of the Native American they are either seen as a less-than-articulate `Noble Savage'/ mystic, a caricature who greets white men with a monosyllabic `How', or a brute savage/ reservation drunkard. Likewise, the Native American is expected to feel shame for the stereotypes that have been thrust upon him; regardless of whether individuals of the dominating culture take stock in the accepted stereotypes or not, the Native American still feels critical eyes on him always, and senses the act of be labeled. If he tries to configure himself into the dominating culture, and comply with the set standards of Whites he is then seen as a `a credit to the race', an `apple Indian`, and a `sellout`, poorly imitating White culture without truly fitting in. Similarly, any Native American who does not try to comply with the standards of White culture is at risk of playing into the brutish, reserv...
Poetry is an expression of a writer 's inner thoughts and underlying affection. Composing a sonnet is all about expressing your inner empathy and challenging your readers to dig deeper into the true meaning of writing. How a poet grows up and the experience he or she has faced in their lifetime is the foundation of their poetry. Benjamin Alire Saenz grew up in New Mexico and was a priest for a few years in his life. His poem To the Desert, has a deeper meaning than what is actually being portrayed. Some readers may assume that it is only about living in the desert and adapting to the environment itself. However, that is not quite the case with this solid piece of writing. Throughout the composition of the poem, metaphors, allusions, theme,
The poem “The Pow Wow at the End of the World” by Sherman Alexie was published in 1996. Along with being a novelist, short story writer, and filmmaker, Alexie is a talented Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-American poet. He experienced the life of a Native American surrounded by developing American culture as he grew up on a Spokane Indian Reservation. Another work of Alexie’s is his book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. The book tells the story of himself as a young native american boy who lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Throughout the book, he faces the challenge of fitting in because he is an outcast. The book intertwines with the poem he wrote as they both speak of forgiveness. It is evident that Alexie is humble and forgives people who have wronged him.
Sherman Alexie has made a name for himself as a prolific contemporary Native American writer, taking inspiration from his own past and experiences with modern Indian life. While there are many enduring themes throughout Alexie's writings: Native identity, modern reservation life, alcohol abuse etc. when it comes to his collection War Dances, the most apparent motif is fatherhood. Community and family are the heart of Native American cultures, with the father archetype holding great honor and expectation. However with alcohol abuse, poverty, and school drop rates running rampant through Native American reservations it is no surprise that more and more Native children are growing up in broken homes. In an alarming poll by the Kids Count Data Center, a national census, in 2011 out of 355,000 polled 53% live in single-parent homes. The lack of a leader, a strong male role model is a major factor in many of the abysmal statistics facing modern reservation children. The despotism of Native American culture has always been based on the deprivation of power, status, equality, and home. This presents a paucity of male dominance, many of these men feel helpless in a society where they have no real identity. They are forced to live in the idea they have no personal potential so it is understandable why the majority of Indian males may feel inadequate and unable to care for their families. Alexie himself struggled in a home with an alcoholic and neglectful father, and like many Native children he almost gave into a similar chain of abuse and alcoholism. This is what inspires him to write, to expose the corroding inner workings of the modern Native peoples brought on by centuries of autocracy. Oppression and the idea of fatherhood is a common ...
To most Americans today, life on the reservation is not at all like is glorified to be. Sherman Alexie uses his literary talent to expose the truth inside the reservation. In particular, in his short stories, “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation No Longer Flashes Red,” “Every Little Hurricane,” and “Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,” Alexie reveals the ever continuous cycle trend of alcoholism, poverty, and racial injustice from one generation to the next. As the trend continues, the earlier it seems that the Native American youth are falling into the habits and life choices of their parents. Thus, each of the previously stated short stories addresses the negative turn-of-events that lead to the Native American youth following the same corrupt path as the generations before them from a different angle to expose the truth within the reservation.
N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn House Made of Dawn, the novel that began the AMERICAN INDIAN LITERARY RENAISSANCE, is Scott Momaday's masterpiece. He originally conceived the work as a series of poems, but under the tutelage of Wallace Stegner at Stanford, Momaday reconceived the work first as a set of stories, then as a novel. House is the story of Abel, an Indian from the Pueblo Momaday calls "Walatowa," a fictionalized version of Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico, where Momaday grew up. Abel returns from World War II a victim of what we would call today "post-traumatic stress syndrome. " He is unable to speak, even to his grandfather, Francisco, who raised him.
A reader of Sherman Alexie’s novel Reservation Blues enters the text with similar assumptions of Native American life, unless of course, he or she is of that particular community. If he or she is not, however, there is the likelihood that the ‘typical’ reader has images of Native Americans based upon long-held social stereotypes of the Lone Ranger’s Tonto and Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves,” possibly chastened with some positive, homey images of the First Thanksgiving as well. However, Alexie’s prose forces one to apprehend Native American life anew, and to see Native Americans as fully-fledged individual characters, with wants and needs and desires, not as those who are simply stoic and ‘other.’
Canfield Reisman, Rosemary M. “Sonnet 43.” Masterplots II. Philip K. Jason. Vol. 7. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2002. 3526-3528. Print.
At that time, for Europeans, places like Egypt were considered exotic and that adds to the popularity of the sonnet at the time. Shelley wrote this poem in a competition with Horace Smith, who also wrote a similar poem, with the same overall themes and name. The sonnet itself is written in iambic pentameter. The first line is a reference to the speaker, "a traveler from an ancient land." Imagery and figurative language used at the beginning of the sonnet, (words such as vast, trunkless, and desert) add to the desolate and barren image and tone of the sonnet.