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Lost Copper
One of America's best known and finest Native American poets, Wendy Rose's work from this collection has been anthologized widely since it first appeared more than a decade ago.
Wendy Rose writes her poetry from the perspectives of many experiences, and her reality often bears sharp edges. Yet as N. Scott Momaday observes in the introduction, The good, strong things which constitute this book are numerous and diverse. Wendy Rose reaches into many corners of experience, and her perceptions are acute and trustworthy...I have come to believe that the syllables and words and verbal patterns of Lost Copper refer immediately to spirit. And the spirit of this book is nearly ineffable. It is an abstraction that inheres in the concrete world, like the hawk s shadow that glides upon the canyon wall. It is elusive. One cannot be sure what it is, and one cannot doubt that it is. It is supremely native...[the language] is brought to bear upon a native sensibility, a native landscape, a native experience. It is made a close reflection of American Indian oral tradition, a tradition of song and prayer and story, rather than of poetry as such. It is older than literature, older than writing. It is as old as language itself.
Wendy Rose is of Miwok and Hopi ancestry. She is program coordinator of American Indian Studies at Fresno City College. Her previous books are The Halfbreed Chronicles and What Happened When the Hopi Hit New York
Wendy Rose writes her poetry from the perspectives of many experiences, and her reality often bears sharp edges. Yet as N. Scott Momaday observes in the introduction, The good, strong things which constitute this book are numerous and diverse. Wendy Rose reaches into many corners of experience, and her perceptions are acute and trustworthy...I have come to believe that the syllables and words and verbal patterns of Lost Copper refer immediately to spirit. And the spirit of this book is nearly ineffable. It is an abstraction that inheres in the concrete world, like the hawk s shadow that glides upon the canyon wall. It is elusive. One cannot be sure what it is, and one cannot doubt that it is. It is supremely native...[the language] is brought to bear upon a native sensibility, a native landscape, a native experience. It is made a close reflection of American Indian oral tradition, a tradition of song and prayer and story, rather than of poetry as such. It is older than literature, older than writing. It is as old as language itself.
Wendy Rose is of Miwok and Hopi ancestry. She is program coordinator of American Indian Studies at Fresno City College. Her previous books are The Halfbreed Chronicles and What Happened When the Hopi Hit New York
- GenresPoetry
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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December 3, 2019
Conflict and confusion battle through each verse. Wendy is an urban Indian so she lives and writes in a world both red and white, but so do many American Indian writers. She is further conflicted by being both Hopi and Miwok because she identifies more with her Hopi father's people, but she cannot be enrolled since Hopi are matrilineal and her mother is Mewok, also her tribe. Wendy voices her displeasure with white people who try to write from an Indian perspective.
Displaying 1 of 1 review