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Authors
Simon J. Ortiz (b. 1941)
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Ortiz’s collections are Naked in the Wind (1970), Going for Rain (1976), A Good Journey (1977), Song, Poetry, Language (1978), From Sand Creek: Rising in This Heart Which Is Our America (1981), A Poem Is a Journey (1981), and After and before Lightning (1994). His work has been gathered in the volume Woven Stone (1992). His short-story collections are Howbah Indians (1978), Fightin’: New and Collected Stories (1983), and Men on the Moon: Collected Short Stories (1999). He also edited two collections, These Hearts, These Poems (1984) and Speaking for the Generations: Native Writers on Writing (1998). A discussion of Ortiz’s poetry appears in Kenneth Lincoln’s Native American Renaissance (1983) and in Lucy Maddox’s “Native American Poetry” in The Columbia History of American Poetry (1993).
Born and raised in the Acoma Pueblo Community in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Simon J. Ortiz received his early education from the Bureau of Indian Affairs school on the Acoma reservation, later attending the University of New Mexico and completing his M.F.A. at the University of Iowa. His poetry explores the significance of individual origins and journeys, which he sees as forming a vital link in the continuity of life. Ortiz's books of poetry include Going for Rain (1976), From Sand Creek (1982), Woven Stone (1992), and After and Before the Lightning (1994).
Questions for Discussion and Writing
Ortiz and Joy Harjo come from very different cultures within the broad community of Native American poets. Harjo's roots are in Oklahoma; Ortiz associates himself with the Pueblo peoples of New Mexico and Arizona. However, both work in a European language and a European literary form -- poems arranged on the printed page. They do so in order to keep traditional voices and songs alive by reconciling them with the world which now surrounds, and threatens to overwhelm, the oldest cultures in the United States.
1. Ortiz's Vision Shadows (1977) and Harjo's Eagle Poem (1990) both use the eagle's symbolic values. Describe the way in which the eagle is invoked or contemplated in each of these poems, and describe the differences between the two poets' uses of the bird.
2. Ortiz's Passing Through Little Rock (1976) and Earth and Rain, the Plants & Sun (1977) and Harjo's White Bear (1983) and Summer Night (1990) all speak of returning to origins, to some condition clearer or closer to the truth. Are these mystical insights? Daydreams? Describe the tonal and thematic distinctions among these poems, and locate the points at which those distinctions make themselves apparent.
3. In terms of form, Harjo's The Flood (1994) is the most conspicuous departure from the prosody favored by both of these poets. Why is The Flood crafted so differently? In general, the poems by Harjo show more formal and linguistic variety than those of Ortiz. How might we account for this difference?
