Raven Eye (Volume 60)

by Margo Tamez

Written from thirteen years of journals, psychic and earthly, this poetry maps an uprising of a borderland indigenous woman battling forces of racism and sexual violence against Native women and children. This lyric collection breaks new ground, skillfully revealing an unseen narrative of resistance on the Mexico–U.S. border. A powerful blend of the oral and long poem, and speaking into the realm of global movements, these poems explore environmental injustice, sexualized violence, and indigenous women’s lives. These complex and necessary themes are at the heart of award-winning poet Margo Tamez’s second book of poetry. Her poems bring forth experiences of a raced and gendered life along the border. Tamez engages the experiences of an indigenous life, refusing labels of Mexican or Native American as social constructs of a colonized people. This book is a challenging cartography of colonialism, poverty, and issues of Native identity and demonstrates these as threats to the environment, both ecological and social, in the borderlands. Each poem is crafted as if it were a minute prayer, dense with compassion and unerring optimism. But the hope that Tamez serves is not blind. In poem after poem, she draws us into a space ruled by mythic symbolism and the ebb and flow of the landscape—a place where comfort is compromised and where we must work to relearn the nature of existence and the value of life.

Genres: Poetry

92 pages, Paperback

First published March 29, 2007

Reviews

[Nicole Nielsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

i had to read this for one of my classes! Loved it!

[AnandaTashie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful book about strong emotions and sexual violence. I read the first 37 pages (of 77), then the last two poems (p 73 - 77).

While I think these experiences often need to be shared and acknowledged, I honestly had trouble (emotionally) reading things like: "Will you remember this night / The scent of tortillas burning / Your half-brother / Using your infant body / His hands clasped around your small hips / Raking you up and down / Across his naked groin" (from "The Breath Moves Corn Girl", p 36).

One of the more powerful for me was "Sex Blood" (p 8, "... Rushed into my hips / The fast rush the fast knowing the fast thrust / The only deciding to fall from the branch / Will stop // Swallowing humidity each time...")

Enjoyed this image from "After colliding, Raven recalls: Where We All Begin" (p 11): "My wings come back... one... two... / To a wet slippery cry of bone and memory retrieval // Where the universe begins / Where the universe begins where the universe begins // Where we all begin"

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Margo Tamez is a scholar and poet with roots in the Lipan Apache/mestizo community of El Calaboz in the Río Grande Valley of South Texas. In her 2007 collection Raven Eye, she combines indigenous traditions from her braided history to reflect on the marginalization of native peoples — and especially the women of those cultures.

Subverting Western literary norms to craft a contemporary indigenous poetics, Tamez unflinchingly explores violence and subjugation while also celebrating sexuality and self-determination. To read these harrowing pieces is to glimpse the poet’s “morning prayers,” what she calls the “yolks of my body / Stories we must tell to undo / What has been done.”

[MARGO · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spreading the 'word'