Swampy+Cree+Poems

When he came out out into the world, the umbilical cord was around his toes. This didn't trouble us, that he was tying knots //that// early. We untied it. Later, he heard his birth story. It caused him to begin tying knots again. He tied things up near his home, TIGHT, as if everything might float away in a river. This river came from a dream he had. House things were tied up at night. Shirts, other clothes too, and a kettle. All those things were tied to his feet so they wouldn't float away in the river he dreamed. You could walk in and see this. Maybe the dream stopped because it was no longer comfortable to sleep with shirts tied to him. Or a kettle. After the dream stopped, he quit tying things. EXCEPT for the one night he tied up a small fire. Tied up a small-stick fire! The fire got loose its own way. || For a long time we thought this boy loved only things that fell straight down. He didn't seem to care about anything else. We were afraid he could only HEAR things that fell straight down! We watched him stand outside in rain. Later it was said he put a tiny pond of rain water in his wife's ear while she slept. And leaned over to listen to it. I remember he was happiest talking about all the kinds of rain. The kind that comes of heron's wings when they fly up from the lake. I know he wanted some of that heron rain for his wife's ear too! He walked out in Spring to watch the young girls rub wild onion under their eyes until tears came out. He knew a name for that rain too. Sad onion rain. That rain fell straight down too, off their faces, and he saw it. || Her name tells of how it was with her. The truth is, she did not speak in winter. Everybody learned not to ask her questions in winter, once this was known about her. The first winter this happened we looked in her mouth to see if something was frozen. Her tongue maybe, or something else in there. But after the thaw she spoke again and told us it was fine for her that way. So each spring we looked forward to that. || 1. Read (or have students read) in class several students' Story of My Name narratives. Have students practice Active Listening to these. 2. Read these three poems, and talk about what they mean. Discuss how Swampy Cree Indians don't name a child when he or she is born. Instead the community waits until that child does something unique or special, and then gives him or her a name to represent that habit or that event. 3. THEN POEM: Make up a Swampy Cree Indian name for yourself the way you were in the past, in your native country. What name would people who knew you then have given you at that time? It should be a name that includes an action word (like "Dances with Wolves"). The name should "tell how it was with you" in your native country... in your life... in the past. It should show what you were like, what you liked to do, or something important that happened to you in the past. 3. Put your "Past Swampy Cree Indian Name" at the top of a piece of paper, then write a story that explains why you might have been given this name. Tell what it was that happened to you. Use a story to show why you might have been given this name in the past. BE SURE TO TELL THE STORY IN THIRD PERSON, USING "HE" OR "SHE" TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF. 4. Turn your story about your "Past Swampy Cree Indian Name" into a poem like the ones above. 5. NOW POEM: Before students leave this class, they should make up another name – a "Present Swampy Cree Indian Name." What name would people who know you NOW give you at this time? It should be a name that includes an action word (like "Dances with Wolves"). The name should "tell how it is with you" in New York City... in your life... in the present. It should show what you are like, what you like to do, or something important that has happened to you recently in New York City. Students should write a story, then a poem for this name for homeFUN. BE SURE TO TELL THE STORY IN THIRD PERSON, USING "HE" OR "SHE" TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF.
 * Three Poems from** **//The Wishing Bone Cycle: IM SWAMPY CREE FROM THE SAPOTAWEYAK NATION!!!!//**
 * //Narrative Poems from the Swampy Cree Indians//**
 * translated by Howard A. Norman (Santa Barbara: Ross-Erickson, 1982)**
 * || Born Tying Knots
 * || Rain Straight Down
 * || Rain Straight Down
 * || Rain Straight Down
 * || Quiet Until The Thaw
 * || Quiet Until The Thaw
 * || Quiet Until The Thaw


 * A Few Identity Poems found at http://members.accessus.net/~bradley/page11.html** except George Ella's poem


 * Posted here by Bill O’Neal:**


 * Untitled**

I'm Nobody! Who Are You? Are you--Nobody--too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd banish us--you know!

How dreary--to be--Somebody! How Public--like a Frog-- To tell your name--the livelong June-- to an admiring Bog! (Emily Dickinson)


 * 25th High School Reunion**

We come to hear the endings of all the stories in our anthology of false starts: how the girl who seemed as hard as nails was hammered into shape; how the athletes ran out of races; how under the skin our skulls rise to the surface like rocks in the bed of a drying stream. Look! We have all turned into ourselves. (Linda Pastan)

The only thing we know is the thing we turn out to be, I don't care what you think, it's true, now you think your way out of this (Leroi Jones [Imamu Amiri Baraka])
 * Red Light**


 * Air**

I am lost in hot fits of myself trying to get out. Lost because I am kinder to myself than I need Softer w/ others than is good for them.

Taller than most/ Stronger What is it about me that frightens me loses me tosses me helplessly in the air.

oh love Songs dont leave w/o me that you are the weakness of my simplicity

Are feeling & want All need & romance I wd do anything to be loved & this is a stupid mistake. (Leroi Jones [Imamu Amiri Baraka])


 * [|Where I’m From](click hyperlink to hear her read the poem)**

I am from clothespins, from Clorox and carbon tetrachloride. I am from the dirt under the back porch. (Black, glistening it tasted like beets.) I am from the forsythia bush, the Dutch elm whose long gone limbs I remember as if they were my own.

I’m from fudge and eyeglasses, from Imogene and Alafair. I’m from the know-it-alls and the pass-it-ons, from perk up and pipe down. I’m from He restoreth my soul with a cottonball lamb and ten verses I can say myself.

I’m from Artemus and Billie’s Branch, fried corn and strong coffee. From the finger my grandfather lost to the auger the eye my father shut to keep his sight. Under my bed was a dress box spilling old pictures, a sift of lost faces to drift beneath my dreams. I am from those moments– snapped before I budded– leaf-fall from the family tree.

by George Ella Lyon