Poetry. Fiction. Linda Hogan is a Chickasaw poet, novelist and essayist. She is the author of several books of poetry and a collection of short fiction. Her novel MEAN SPIRIT, published by Atheneum, received the Oklahoma Book Award for fiction in 1990 and the Mountain & Plains Bookseller's Association Fiction Award.
Linda K. Hogan (born 1947 Denver) is a Native American poet, storyteller, academic, playwright, novelist, environmentalist and writer of short stories. She is currently the Chickasaw Nation's Writer in Residence.
Linda Hogan is Chickasaw. Her father is a Chickasaw from a recognized historical family and Linda's uncle, Wesley Henderson, helped form the White Buffalo Council in Denver during the 1950s. It was to help other Indian people coming to the city because of The Relocation Act, which encouraged migration for work and other opportunities. He had a strong influence on her and she grew up relating strongly to both her Chickasaw family in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and to a mixed Indian community in the Denver area. At other times, her family traveled because of the military.
Her first university teaching position was in American Indian Studies and American Studies at the University of Minnesota. After writing her first book, Calling Myself Home, she continued to write poetry. Her work has both a historical and political focus, but is lyrical. Her most recent books are The Book of Medicines (1993) and Rounding the Human Corners. (2008) She is also a novelist and essayist. Her work centers on the world of Native peoples, from both her own indigenous perspective and that of others. She was a full professor of Creative Writing at the University of Colorado and then taught the last two years in the University's Ethnic Studies Department. She currently is the Writer in Residence for her own Chickasaw Nation.
Essayist, novelist, and poet, Hogan has published works in many different backgrounds and forms. Her concentration is on environmental themes. She has acted as a consultant in bringing together Native tribal representatives and feminist themes, particularly allying them to her Native ancestry. Her work, whether fiction or non-fiction, expresses an indigenous understanding of the world.
She has written essays and poems on a variety of subjects, both fictional and nonfictional, biographical and from research. Hogan has also written historical novels. Her work studies the historical wrongs done to Native Americans and the American environment since the European colonization of North America.
Hogan was a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Oklahoma. She is the (inaugural) Writer-in-Residence for the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma. In October 2011, she instructed a writing workshop through the Abiquiu Workshops in Abiquiu, New Mexico.
I wanted to like this so badly. I'd read one of her stories years ago and it stuck with me so I was excited to read this collection. The poetry is lovingly observed from the minute moments of life, if a bit dry. But overall, I felt distanced from the characters and stories in the book. Just when I was starting to care about someone, I felt like I was being pushed away.
I read this on the recommendation of two friends. They raved about it, and I usually enjoy Native American literature. However, this collection fell flat for me. In the poetry section, only the poem Heritage touched my soul; the others, while vivid, just didn't seem to connect. The stories were more enjoyable and her sense of character was strong, but most seemed unfinished.