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Beneath My Heart: Poetry
A collection of poems on the Maidu Indians of Northern California, the author's ancestors
80 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 19, 2023
Excellent poems!
March 10, 2010
Sensuous, richly imagined poetry by one of our most talented poets that sweeps us with profound power into the very center of her life.
Beneath my heart a torrent of blood
carries all that I love.
- from Beneath My Heart
That pulsing cataract plunges us deep into the world behind her eyes as we experience her childhood anger, resentment, and shame at growing up first Indian and then lesbian in a straight White world; her complex and many-dimensioned love for other women; and, lastly, her final, grieving reconciliation with her mother and her self.
When mama dies I will turn
like a star learning to shine,
the world will release me
into its vastness.
When death comes rapping with its soft claw,
I will stand in the doorway,
then leave.
- from Beneath My Heart
This poetry is not for the faint of heart; these words are distilled like strong spirits, a fiery shot of courage and madness. You won't find here the syrupy, childish, stuff so often foisted on us as verse but the pure quill, uncut, the bitter taste of rejection as well as the heady rush of just-beginning love. She makes us feel the sharp pain and rage of hiding out from the taunts of classmates and then meticulously traces that rage and pain into adulthood where it has been ground down and blunted into the dull ache of melancholy and isolation as she describes herself barricaded:
In the room where I think and think a long time,
brooding, saying nothing, where I crouch over words
because a sullen angel watches, ready to cut
my thoughts to ribbons with a fierce blade�
- from The Room
This fortress room is a citadel we may recognize for we've held, perhaps, our own despondent vigils there. Do I speak for many of us when I say that I have felt, too often, the same numb fury? She gives us back that brute anger, frozen on the cusp of human rage, and then, in another piece that fairly sparkles with animal joy and delight at being merely alive, dives headlong out of that narrow room and into the wide green world:
In the jungle we look for the deepest green.
- from We Look for the Deepest Green
She discovers for us, with us, the rich fecundity of horses and birds, the chill silence of frozen lakes and coyote's sardonic grin, the hidden paths that lead into light and the soft common space we share:
The lodge is entered from below,
a doorway brightens the water.
It is warm and damp inside,
the woven floor tamped down.
- from The Beaver Woman
Here is the real secret, the longed-for, safe green haven at journey's end is the doorway back out into the world. She speaks with her own clear voice and yet our own thoughts echo as she speaks, in this poem of transcendent beauty, the words that capture the heart of love and recapture her own true power, as the child comes into full womanhood and stands lingering on the threshold of possibility:
This is a gift: to be drawn into the dark,
frightened, where power beckons,
or madness, or whatever heals.
- from The Beaver Woman
This slim volume is a gift of blood drawn from the deep womb of memory and pain and touched upon our foreheads like a star of love; the record of a spirit journey of healing that culminates in redemptive acceptance of all she is and, with her, all we are.
Beneath my heart a torrent of blood
carries all that I love.
- from Beneath My Heart
That pulsing cataract plunges us deep into the world behind her eyes as we experience her childhood anger, resentment, and shame at growing up first Indian and then lesbian in a straight White world; her complex and many-dimensioned love for other women; and, lastly, her final, grieving reconciliation with her mother and her self.
When mama dies I will turn
like a star learning to shine,
the world will release me
into its vastness.
When death comes rapping with its soft claw,
I will stand in the doorway,
then leave.
- from Beneath My Heart
This poetry is not for the faint of heart; these words are distilled like strong spirits, a fiery shot of courage and madness. You won't find here the syrupy, childish, stuff so often foisted on us as verse but the pure quill, uncut, the bitter taste of rejection as well as the heady rush of just-beginning love. She makes us feel the sharp pain and rage of hiding out from the taunts of classmates and then meticulously traces that rage and pain into adulthood where it has been ground down and blunted into the dull ache of melancholy and isolation as she describes herself barricaded:
In the room where I think and think a long time,
brooding, saying nothing, where I crouch over words
because a sullen angel watches, ready to cut
my thoughts to ribbons with a fierce blade�
- from The Room
This fortress room is a citadel we may recognize for we've held, perhaps, our own despondent vigils there. Do I speak for many of us when I say that I have felt, too often, the same numb fury? She gives us back that brute anger, frozen on the cusp of human rage, and then, in another piece that fairly sparkles with animal joy and delight at being merely alive, dives headlong out of that narrow room and into the wide green world:
In the jungle we look for the deepest green.
- from We Look for the Deepest Green
She discovers for us, with us, the rich fecundity of horses and birds, the chill silence of frozen lakes and coyote's sardonic grin, the hidden paths that lead into light and the soft common space we share:
The lodge is entered from below,
a doorway brightens the water.
It is warm and damp inside,
the woven floor tamped down.
- from The Beaver Woman
Here is the real secret, the longed-for, safe green haven at journey's end is the doorway back out into the world. She speaks with her own clear voice and yet our own thoughts echo as she speaks, in this poem of transcendent beauty, the words that capture the heart of love and recapture her own true power, as the child comes into full womanhood and stands lingering on the threshold of possibility:
This is a gift: to be drawn into the dark,
frightened, where power beckons,
or madness, or whatever heals.
- from The Beaver Woman
This slim volume is a gift of blood drawn from the deep womb of memory and pain and touched upon our foreheads like a star of love; the record of a spirit journey of healing that culminates in redemptive acceptance of all she is and, with her, all we are.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews