Shapeshift (Volume 52)

by Sherwin Bitsui

"Fourteen ninety-something, / something happened / and no one can pick it out of the lineup . . . "

In words drawn from urban and Navajo perspectives, Sherwin Bitsui articulates the challenge a Native American person faces in reconciling his or her inherited history of lore and spirit with the coldness of postmodern civilization.

Shapeshift is a collection of startling new poetry that explores the tensions between the worlds of nature and man. Through brief, imagistic poems interspersed with evocative longer narratives, it offers powerful perceptions of American culture and politics and their lack of spiritual grounding. Linking story, history, and voice, Shapeshift is laced with interweaving images—the gravitational pull of a fishbowl, the scent of burning hair, the trickle of motor oil from a harpooned log—that speak to the rich diversity of contemporary Diné writing.

"Tonight, I draw a raven's wing inside a circle
measured a half second
before it expands into a hand.
I wrap its worn grip over our feet
As we thrash against pine needles inside the earthen pot."

With complexities of tone that shift between disconnectedness and wholeness, irony and sincerity, Bitsui demonstrates a balance of excitement and intellect rarely found in a debut volume. As deft as it is daring, Shapeshift teases the mind and stirs the imagination.

Genres: Poetry, Native American

80 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

Sherwin Bitsui is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. Currently, he lives in Tucson, Arizona. He is Dine of the Todich'ii'nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl'izilani (Many Goats Clan).

Reviews

[Oscar]

Shapeshift ultimately transforms the actual image of the skinwalker (continuously depicted as a malevolent spirit) into a metaphor for the contemporary Native American experience. Bitsui draws strength from his personal cultural history combined with his mentorship from the multicultural poetry community to create a narrative that portrays the skinwalker as a necessary survival device for modern Indians. Instead of waiting to be defined by legislation or history, Bitsui’s shapeshifter embraces a combination of roles to survive a continuous ethnic assault from the dominant national culture. The dominant that seeks to malign storytelling as myth or magic that is secondary to science and history. Bitsui’s elusive narrator notes in the final lines of Shapeshift how “the linguist still runs his hands up the length of our tongues/perplexed that we even have a tongue at all.”

This metamorphic Indian can quote the songs and stories of his past while simultaneously examine and critique the failings of his contemporary world in a story that is authentic, resonant and empowering to the self and the nation.

[slp]

craft-wise, critic-wise, the collection is slightly uneven, in the way that any first collection might misstep occasionally in understanding what is necessary to itself...if we are talking "polish"

reader-wise, import-wise, the high points in this book are worth every moment spent with the book. astonishingly emotional use of imagery and grammar, and the poems are the transformation itself, the poems are the shapeshift and make the reader shapeshift with them, and if you can note the astounding depth of beauty, horror, tragedy, in "The Sun Rises and I Think of Your Bruised Larynx", then you will understand what is achieved also in the last poem "Chrysalis".

[Abby]

This, this is brilliant. Can't not read it out loud. Got enough of the references to know I wasn't getting all the references. I love the shape of this book, which might be shifting but feels very whole. It's one of those books that sits inside you like a solid object, filling up the empty.

I read all Bitsui's work searching for the phrase "mountains mountaining," which I swear I heard him say at a reading once. I never found it, so maybe it's unpublished or maybe I'm crazy. I don't mind continuing to look as long as he keeps putting out poems.

[Kelly]

I re-read some of this last night.

The language is simple, and the imagery is poignant. I find this book hard to describe, but I really like it.

I can go back to it numerous times and just read one piece and put it down. Very reflective.

[Matthew]

One of the most original and visionary poets of our generation!

[Donald Armfield]

Bitsui amazed me with his collection “Flood Song” and don’t know why it took me so long to read his debut collection which is equally interesting.
His skinwalkers lurk within behind a haunting yet frenzy side of metaphors. I’ll just list some favorites below.

-Asterisk
-The Skyline of a Missing Tooth
-The Eyes of the Executioner
-Turtle
-ANWR
-The Gravitational Pull of a Fishbowl
-Drought

[Jamie Clegg]

I don’t have adequate language to describe the experience of reading this collection (over and over and over again this past month). Definitely read it, if you can.

[Alexis Kop]

Sherwin’s collection is beautiful and at times haunting (See skyline of a missing tooth). This is for anyone who is from or who appreciates the desert, language, and metaphors.

[Beth]

I started reading this book during chemotherapy, which I think was a bad idea. The language is beautiful but quite abstract, and I'm having trouble getting into it. I have decided to lay it aside and read at a later time.

[Anna]

Super lyrical, not unpolitical.

[Jeffery Renard]

Brilliant stuff!

[Marie Me]

nice :)

[birdmaddgirl]

this is really somewhat over a 3 for me, but not quite a 4. i love the insistence of Bitsui's poetry.