Laguna Woman

by Leslie Marmon Silko

An autobiographical narrative, with emphasis on the importance of water.

Genres: Poetry, Indigenous, Native American

45 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1993

About the author

Leslie Marmon Silko (born Leslie Marmon; born March 5, 1948) is a Native American writer of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the First Wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.

Silko was a debut recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Grant, now known as the "Genius Grant", in 1981 and the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994. She currently resides in Tucson, Arizona.

(from Wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_...

Reviews

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Laguna Woman’ has 18 poems that express the poet’s sense of Native American identity. Other themes in these poems include traditional story narration, family history, and the Laguna landscape. Silko has used commonplace language to create scenic and memorable effects.

Laguna Women is a narrative of Native Americans and their relationship with the land and animals. It’s also about European forces undermining the traditional ways of life. Silko’s graceful weaving of these relationships stems from her storytelling abilities as well as her use of stanzas as a format.

The drawings scattered throughout Laguna Woman not only echo the poems nearby, but also highlight specific aspects of these stories. The absence of a title accompanying these drawings suggests that they are semantically related to the poems.

Silko’s writing style revolves around the use of feminist consciousness, nature, a .sense of loss, and fragmentation. Subjectivity, free verse, and symbolic use of past rituals and memories are common modes of narration. Her poems’ themes and subject matter depict hatred for white hegemony and the need for Native American individualism.

Furthermore, there are numerous examples in her works of women and nature being raped by colonial powers, sexual exploitation and drug addiction.

Consequently, the characters express a robust desire to return to their ancestral world, where they can find solace. They reclaim in order to retrieve their lost identity, which is the dominant theme of Silko’s works.

[E A · Rating 5 out of 5]

very beautiful

[SouthWestZippy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting pictures and good narratives that go with them.