Re-mapping The Imagined Nations:

An e-interview with Native writers

By MELANIE CESSPOOCH

SANTA FE—A group of current and former students of IAIA's Creative Writing department made up the reading, "Re-mapping the Imagined Nations: Emerging Native Poets and Writers" which was held at the University oArizona, Tucson, April 16, 2003. I was one of them, also Terry Gomez, Jennifer Foerster, Orlando White, and former students, Santee Frazier and Sherwin Bitsui.

Bitsui, who is on the editorial board for Red Ink Magazine, had been planning this reading all year as part of his independent studies course. He is in the English and American Indian Studies programs at the U of A. He graduated with his Associate of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in 1999 from the IAIA. His first book of poetry, "Shape Shift” (University of Arizona Press) will be out in 2004.

He worked closely with Angel Lawson, Northern Arapaho from the Wind River Reservation. “I was invited by Sherwin Bitsui to help coordinate the reading as an editor for Red Ink Magazine,” she said.

Lawson is a doctoral candidate in American Indian Studies at the U of A. Her area of study is Native literature and film. She is also the managing editor and head of reviews at Red Ink Magazine. Lawson was responsible for the financial budget together and arranged the plane flights and hotel reservations.

The following interview with available participants, Terry, Orlando, Sherwin, Angel, and Jennifer, was conducted over e-mail.

Melanie: Type your name, where you're from, clan, tribal affiliation.

Terry: Ha marawe (Hello) my name is Terry Gomez, I am from the Pena-Nuh Band of Comanche. Pena-Nuh translated into English means Wasp Band or as my grandmother described: you go in, attack fast, and then get the hell out of there. I am from Apache and Lawton, OK.

Orlando: My full name is Orlando Orson White. I am Dineh and of the Zuni Wateredge People, born for the Mexican clan from Sweetwater, AZ.

Sherwin: Bitter water and Manygoats. Dine from White
Cone AZ.

Jennifer: My name is Jennifer Foerster: I am Muscogee Creek from my mother's family; Dutch/German
from my father's family. I am from Jenks, Oklahoma, and grew up living between many countries and languages, which probably accounts for my obsession with maps and re-mapping location.

Melanie: What did you think of the reading at the University of Arizona?

Orlando: The reading went fairly well.

Terry: The Emerging Writers reading was very professional and well organized. We had an elegant auditorium in which we read and our hosts were extremely gracious. We had a nice plane flight, ate peanuts and drank coca cola (aye). I don't know exactly how to explain it, but we (the group of writers that read) all connect. I think it is because we support and respect each other and the work we are doing. Everyone gave an intense performance.

I had the opportunity to hang out with the other writers and discuss their awesome work, which is a rare treat. We also had a diverse audience, who gave us feedback on our writing. Sherwin, Jennifer, Santee, and I had a chance to read and talk about our work with some elementary and middle school children, and also listen to their work. There are some very talented kids out there!

(Sherwin coordinated a reading event with a local high school. Terry and Jennifer came back with presents for Easter.)

Besides meeting a very cute man who Melanie disapproved of (aye), I had the opportunity once again to hear the work of my fellow writers. That inspired me to think more about my own work and which direction I would like to take it.

Sherwin introduced me to the senior editor at the University of Arizona Press, who asked me to submit a manuscript of my short stories and poetry, which I have done. So, we'll see what happens with that.

Sherwin: It was the worst reading ever......just kidding. It was good. People later commented that some people read longer than others and others read too little. I got all kinds of comments, like... damn, why are all these writers writing about bones? What's up with the 'kangaroo's forked penis"? Does it have to do with living in two worlds?

We were in competition with Amiri Baraka that night. My fault. I should have looked beforehand. But all in all the people that were there liked it very much.

Jennifer: The reading was full of energy and intentsity. It was overwhelming and powerful to be both a
participant with all the talented, awesome writers, and to be a witness in the audience to everyone's
performance.

Angel: I felt each reading was very different from the next and each provided very personal insights. There were reocurring themes, dealing largely with the shared history of being an indigenous person, but some readings were focused on specific locations associated with home and family, while others were
more global.

In some cases, identity and place were left out entirely, challenging definitions of "Native literature."Melanie: Dealing with the category of Native literature, do you feel the emerging writers are breaking away from or continuing in a particular vein of Native literature.

Melanie: Dealing with the category of Native literature, do you feel the emerging writers are breaking away from or continuing in a particular vein of native literature.

Orlando: I think Native American Literature will always be Native American Literature. I just want to be a writer and a poet.

Terry: I feel like it's a break. I guess it depends on which style you mean. There's a style like Joy Harjo and Louise Erdrich which I feel we're continuing work they started, meaning how they have broken stereotypes. But we're branching off in to our own unique styles. I feel like we're definitely broken away if you are comparing us to some writers at conferences that we heard. If I hear one more poem/story about an Indian with his canoe by the shining water, I think I will toss my fry bread! Yet, for some non-Natives that know nothing else about Indians, this is what they want to hear. But, you know, we're the real thing. We don't have to say in our writing over and over, "We're Indian!!!" Being Indian is infused all throughout our writing and in every fiber of our being.

Sherwin: It's multi-dimensional at this point. It varies and appears to be an arbitrary thing. Its beautiful that Native people are writing about the Native experience and sharing those stories, but does that make it "Native" or just human? I don't know any more. I'm currently becoming more involved with what is Urban Navajo Literature because that's where I am at, at least at this moment. Should I call it Tucson-Navajo Literature? I have no great insight as to where one thought ends and another ends. I am still spiraling out of control. I want to go to Chinle and make everyone eat vegetables.

Angel: At the moment, it's literature written by Natives dealing with Native topics, but that's problematic because then you have to define "what is a Native
topic?".

Jennifer: An eclipse from what Native literature is expected to be - or how it is taught at Universities. But I think emerging Native writers all over are and have been working in unique veins. It's just the academia and the commercial public that puts the tag on Native literature and creates a shape, sound and expectation for it. Some Native-created literature does fit, some doesn't. Some conforms to it, some doesn't, some naturally contains those elements.

Any kind of art form is always changing / being re-mapped. Why would Native literature or other Native arts be any different in nature? How is it possible for the same standards to apply as what was dominant 30 years ago at the beginning of the Native Literature, "Renaissance"? I think we've all learned from the first major writers on the Native lit. scene, but it's natural to emerge into one's unique voice and vision especially since the times are different today.

Terry: Native literature is...humm...Oh f*#@^ the scholars who are always trying to put everyone into a category. I hate that. I consider myself an Indian woman writer/artist but I want to be able to write and make art about what ever I want to and not be stuck in some kind of nice little square with a label on it. It seems that if I were to focus and say I will only write Native literature that would be limiting my ideas.

I need to write and make art about contemporary issues from an Indian point of view but that doesn't just include Natives as subjects. I want/need to explore through my work: my ancestors and history, urban Indians, speak-out about the war in Iraq, or anything else, drugs, love, punk/funk, and cars (aye).

Anyways, sometimes, I need to be able to write from a non-native point of view, especially when incorporating my characters into plays or short stories. I despise categorization. Maybe because someone once told me that I was very a-sexual. I think he was trying to say androgynous but couldn't think of the word. I told him, I am not a-sexual because I never reproduced with myself. I think worms do that. That's all I can say about that. Maybe if I were Wovoka, or Jesus, or Buddha, I could give you the correct answer.

Melanie: Sherwin and Angel, as far as Native literature is concerned, where do you feel upcoming poets and writers fit in?

Sherwin: They are a continuation of that legacy. Not necessarily by choice, but ultimately players within that team whether they choose to or not because it just so happens in this world that "Native" writers or artists just can't be seen as "Just" artiste and writers yet. Its a colonial thing, but its also nice to at least have the privilege to be a part of a community. Whatever it is that we as "Others" do, we are examined and nurtured to provide "counter" narratives in reaction to, or in relation to Western Colonial ideology and theory.

Angel: I think ultimately they will challenge previous understandings of what Native literature is--it's content and form. Some will move completely away from
identity politics, and others from accepted (or expected) forms of writing, including those forms that rely heavily on orality as a model.

Melanie: Orlando, your work takes a close examination of the English language, in particular the alphabet. Can you tell me where this interest stems from? And what are you hoping to change/ inspire/ narrate to the audience?

Orlando: I think it's the playfulness of a child's mind, how he/she uses imagination. How the ABC's can be used like acrostics, but instead it is an image. There is much imagination and risk in a child's mind, I feel that my poems maybe stem from this.

Melanie: What does "Re-mapping the Imagined Nations" mean to you?

Orlando: To me it means, there is an all-new generation of Native writers, artists, musicians, and poets out there, and it's our time to create.

Sherwin: "Re-mapping the Imagined Nations" was chosen for the title as a response to how we, as Native and Non-native peoples, have mapped our understanding and conception of our identity-- national and cultural, from an imagined place or perception. How do we deal with the expanded present in the context of self-perception? How do Native poets, using contemporary (Western?) methodologies, communicate this inherited sense of place and identity and re-construct ourselves and voices in a syncretic universe and how we would re-map the legacy to mean what we want it to mean?

Angel: The "Imagined Nations" are those Indian Nations that have been created in the imaginations of non-Indians and perpetuated throughout the world through literature and art. By "re-mapping," Indian people are telling their own stories and presenting their own definitions of self through poetry and writing.

Melanie: Sherwin, what was the purpose of having an emerging writers and poets reading? And what did you hope to accomplish? Was it accomplished?

Sherwin: To take over the world, not accomplished yet, we need more readings.

Angel: We hoped to expose the local community to new kinds of writing that broadened their experience with Native literatures. I think we succeeded.

Melanie: Do you have anything else to add? Any comments? Questions? Bearing Strait Theories?

Orlando: Head rolls across floor. Ears fall off. Pick them up. Put them back into the face of an eye.

Terry: Even though I have been asked if I was Oriental many times (aye) my folks did not cross the Bearing Strait. I think I just sleep with my face mashed into my pillow too hard! I guess my last comment would be a question: When can we do it again? (And I'm talking about having a reading! aye.)

The March 16th reading was sponsored by: Red Ink Magazine, U of A English Dept, U of A American Indian Studies program, Arizona State Museum, the Poetry Center, and Will Wilson (photographer), and the Native American Student Association (NASA) who provided a small honorarium. Sherwin Bitsui and Angel Lawson coordinated the event.

Copyright © 2003 IAIA Chronicle