Itch Like Crazy (Volume 51)

by Wendy Rose

Among Native American writers of mixed-blood heritage, few have expressed their concerns with personal identity with as much passion as Wendy Rose. A mainstay among American Indian poets whose work addresses these issues, she is a writer with whom readers of diverse ethnic backgrounds have consistently identified.

In her latest work, Rose returns to these major motifs while exploring a new using poetry as a tool to delve into the buried secrets of family history—and all of American history as well. Confronting questions of personal history that itch like crazy—the irritations that drive human existence—she acknowledges and pays tribute to her Indian and European ancestors without hiding her anger with American society.

Rose's poems are strong political and social statements that have a distinctly narrative flavor. Here are Europeans who first set foot on America's shores while Taino Indians greeted them as if they were visiting neighbors; Hopi and Miwok "Clan Mothers, grand-daughters, all those the missionaries erased"; and European forebears who as settlers pushed their way relentlessly west. Through her vivid imagery, she speaks to and for these ancestors with a sense of loss and an itching caused by the biases provoked by ethnic chauvinism.

Itch Like Crazy is a finely crafted literary work that is also a manifesto addressing contacts and conflicts in the history of Indian-white relations. By presenting another view of U.S. history and its impact on the Native Americans who are her ancestors, it offers a new appreciation of the issue of "tribal identity" that too often faces Native peoples of the Americas—and is too often misunderstood by Euro-American society.

Genres: Poetry

136 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2002

Reviews

[Gwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely poetry, and a wrenching reflection on the complexity of families and working out of her identity as a mixed race woman.

[Amber Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, I enjoyed this collection. Stand alone, many of the poems are quite interesting. Though, I must say that my favorite of the entire collection is the first to appear: "Imagine it like this." There is so much depth to this poem in particular that the other poems left me sort of wanting, for lack of a better way to describe how I felt. I also enjoyed Part Three of the work : Listen Here for the Voices. It is in this part of the work that Rose shares with her readers photographs and a brief description/story that goes along with it. This part is quite autobiographical, less memoir. After reading part three, I thought to myself "where is *this* book?" I found the little stories and the collection of photos to be interesting and I would love to hear more about that.

Of course, it can be argued that this is what the collection is about that Rose does share these stories with her readers, through her poetry. Well, yes she does do this. But, and this is why I give this book two stars instead of three or four, a lot of the story and meaning simply gets lost for me somewhere in translation. I can see where a lot of the images and associations and names are very important to Rose and her art. But without the background, I feel that much of what Rose is trying to say gets lost. I can see that person A makes her feel (most of the time) but it loses some weight because I don't know *who* these people are. I guess, to some degree, Rose doesn't necessarily know who these people are either.

With all that said, I think I might have had a better grasp on the poetry if Part Three was Part One instead. That way, I would have had a better foundation.

I really did enjoy her poetry. Some of them are quite interesting and deal with concepts that are important to me. I can see the emotion and I can see the importance and why this matters to Rose. But I just feel that there is a missing weight. A weight that I felt in the first poem but seems to have floated off from the poetry that followed.

[Kyle Aisteach · Rating 3 out of 5]

I need to start with a clarification that I know very little about contemporary poetry, so I read a book like this as a lay person, not as a literary scholar. I was pleased with the accessibility of it, that it was not a collection of abstract poems about nothing more than personal feelings. The personal feelings are there, to be sure (most specifically in Rose's sense of a torn identity being both Native and European American while feeling rage at the historical injustices that resulted when Europeans came to the new world). But unlike many poetry collections, this one feels focused and on-message. I found it worth reading, but I'd be curious to hear the take of those more accustomed to reading poetry than I.

[Billie Rain · Rating 5 out of 5]

genealogy like you've never seen it done before.