Poet-Chief: The Native American Poetics of Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda

by James Nolan

A long-overdue comparative study of the American voice in hemispheric poetry, Poet-Chief brings cross-cultural and interdisciplinary considerations to the work of Whitman and Neruda. Nolan proposes American Indian poetics as the model for the poets' own poetics.
Whitman and Neruda wrote from an Americanist perspective. Both developed an oral, tribal poetics and assumed shamanic voices and personae in their major works, Leaves of Grass and Canto General. In addition they each presented the initiatory journey of a shaman in "The Sleepers" and "Alturas de Macchu Picchu." Despite the historical, cultural, and individual distinctions between their works, they both celebrate a tribal community and assume the functions of what Whitman calls the "poet-chief." These points of intersection between the poetics of Whitman, Neruda, and the American Indian clarify the nature of that broader voice identified as the native in American poetry.
This fresh reading of two major American poets helps to break through the partitions that separate the native, English, and Spanish poetic responses to the American hemisphere.

270 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

James Nolan's latest book is the award-winning collection of short stories, PERPETUAL CARE. His two books of poetry are WHY I LIVE IN THE FOREST and WHAT MOVES IS NOT THE WIND, both from Wesleyan. He is a regular contributor to BOULEVARD, and recent stories have appeared in SHENANDOAH, ARKANSAS REVIEW, and the anthology NEW ORLEANS NOIR. A New Orleans native, he lives in the French Quarter and directs the Loyola Writing Institute.

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

first half > second half

[hh · Rating 3 out of 5]

hard to talk about this book, because i will need to dig into it pretty extensively for my thesis work. i'll keep my commentary here to just a couple of points. the writing and thinking are lucid and interesting. i find the research and line of inquiry to be outdated; although the book was written in the early 90s, much of the bibliography dates back into the 60s and earlier. the notions of indigenous people that nolan works from are not, to my eye, grounded in the realities of indigenous life so much as they are grounded in the ways that academia (read: educated white men) see native americans.

[Joe Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad at all.

(I haven't finished it--but read enough to think: good. Good idea.)

Makes a lot of sense. Fun to read.

(And it's what Martin Espada's been saying all along--that the two gentlemen poets are brothers or something. Reincarnated.)