Claiming Breath

by Diane Glancy

Like poets of legend, Diane Glancy has spent much of her life on the road. For years she supported her family by driving throughout Oklahoma and Arkansas teaching poetry in the schools. Claiming Breath is an account of one of those years, what Glancy calls “a winter count of sorts, a calendar, a diary of personal matters . . . and a final acceptance of the broken past. . . . It’s a year that covers more than a year.”

Genres: Poetry, Native American, Memoir, Indigenous

119 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

(Helen) Diane Glancy is a Cherokee poet, author and playwright.

Glancy was born in 1941 in Kansas City, Missouri. She received her Bachelor of Arts (English literature) from the University of Missouri in 1964, then later continued her education at the University of Central Oklahoma, earning her a Masters degree in English in 1983. In 1988, she received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa.

Glancy is an English professor and began teaching in 1989 at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, teaching Native American literature and creative writing courses. Glancy's literary works have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diane Glancy is a poet and writer of part Cherokee heritage. She teaches English and creative writing. In her younger years following a divorce she spent a long time on the road teaching. This book charts a year on the road and is part poetry and part prose. Glancy describes herself as being on the middle ground between two cultures. The journey of the book follows the course of a year, although essentially it is non-linear. The feel of the book is one of movement rather than permanency. There is cultural crossing (transveillances as Glancy says) and a claiming of open space. Race, class and gender are all addressed in Glancy’s particular way: as are matters of spirituality. Words are central:
“The word is important in Native American tradition. You speak the path on which you walk. Your words make the trail.”
“Writing is the hammer & chisel that breaks down the established way of thinking. A concrete event, then an abstraction. An image, then a thought. Finally, writing builds another establishment with the fragments.”
With all the words, it is poetry that is central:
“Poetry saves what is human in this world going gaudy & insane. In exploring small truths, something larger might turn up, adding dimension, insight, vision, recognition to our lives. We just might be more complete, more aware after a poem.”
“20th century poetry is a piñata. Images break from the earth when the poet strikes it.”
Writing about it is one thing: reading it is another.

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have the wonderful opportunity to study and work with Diane Glancy, my mentor for the first semester of graduate school. As the incredible nerd that I am, I picked this book up at the campus library as soon as possible to experience Diane's writing before meeting with her. Between this slim volume and her teachings, I've already learned so much in just the past week.

This classifies as a memoir, but it's not a standard memoir in the way most of us recognize. This reads like poetry at times, journal entries at others, advice on writing, and, yes, even prayers. Diane is of Cherokee descent on her father's side and German/English on her mother's, and as she got older she wrote about the overlaps between Native American spirituality and Christianity.

Her search for identity (which she says is one of her obsessions that shows up time and again in her writing) covers a lot of ground, from her divorce to the death of her parents to significant time spent on the road driving from state to state, something she continues to do today, her car on the open road being her preferred form of transportation. Her writing in this collection touch on these aspects of her discoveries, her observations, and her experiences. Some entries are short and yet say so much about what happened in her life during the writing of this volume, like the second time her house was broken into while she was out of town:

Next Day

I wash the kitchen walls. Pick up papers which are knee-deep from all my files turned upside down. In the closet my shoe boxes are spilled again. I find the black and white checked dress I bought for my mother's funeral is gone. But they left the sash. A wide piece of cloth with large checks. I jerk it from the hanger. Take it to the front porch. Tie it to the post. A banner of look-what-you-forgot.

(p58)

Others, such as the title piece, Claiming Breath are longer and are more directly advice for writing, and this is where I have found this volume especially illuminating because this is what I crave right now as I start on my own literary journey, so to speak.

How do you begin writing poetry? I would say after all these years I'm not sure. First of all, you read. You have to be aware of what's being written. Poetry is a conversation. Often while I'm reading, I start a poem. An image will set off another image, or I think of something I want to say.

(p89)

If we read this in workshop, she would tell us to strike out the words "poetry" and "poem" and write in "essay" instead since our focus is creative non-fiction. She would probably say that this advice applies just as much to essays as it does poetry.

Work with what you've experienced. I think sometimes, who cares about my ordinary life? But often, that's exactly what matters.

(p89)

However, spend some time with her or even read her writing and you'll see her life is not as ordinary as she thinks it is. She's a quiet woman in person, but when she talks, she has a lot to say about her experiences and her travels. Her advice speaks to me on so many levels, and it is everything that I hoped it would be in regards to how I want to live my life. So, yeah, you could say I'm digging the shit out of this program so far.

And her writing! I'm about to spend more time with The Dream of a Broken Field which she gave us copies of to use in class as a sort of workbook. We've only read two pieces from it, but I don't want to stop there. She has a way with words, experimental, that appeals to me, a sort of devil-may-care. I was surprised that her relationship to Christianity didn't turn me off, but I recognize in her words that these are her experiences - she doesn't seem to care what her readers believe, and that's something I can respect. She also, because of her relationship to Native American spirituality, has an interesting way of viewing Christianity, the stories in the Bible, and her faith.

Overall, she wants to live her life her way, and seems to encourage us to do the same. I can get behind that.

Be interested in a lot of things. Be an interesting person, live a responsible life. Start keeping notes.

I think it's also important to know why you write. When I go into a bookstore & see shelves full of books, I think why do I do this? Hasn't it been done better than I can do it? That's when I have to be able to look in myself & decide, I have something to say too - These other books can move over & make room for mine.

(p91)

Hell, yeah.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry is road maintenance for a fragmented world which seeks to be kept together. It’s been an integral activity for a long time. I travel through windstorms, the summer heat, & winter blizzards. The vast unspeakable prairie- the poet only has to gather the words.
…
I have this tall grass prairie, this prayer-ee for my territory & always in travel, in the act of migration, is the POEM. The holy word is foundation for our civilization.

Diane Glancy is a novelist, poet, and playwright that has a Cherokee father and English-German mother, and she lists herself as an “undocumented” Cherokee and I have not heard that terminology; I am not sure if she chose never to have the testing done, or if it is addressed in some her vastly prolific work which I had never heard of, unbelievably.

This collection is from 1992 and seems to cover earlier years in her life, as a young mother, itinerant teacher, losing her mother with whom her relationship is complicated, learning her Native American heritage and juxtaposing with her experience of the Plains, where I live, although hers are the Central Plains and don’t have the mountains in sight. Really powerful imagery and sight, an important poet I want to read more of…

I was taken aback by a part of her poem Ethnic Arts where she wrote:
For me, art is pacification & purification of
old grievances. I write about the loss of land
& I think it had to happen. Can you imagine
America remaining as it was while the rest of
the world moved on? Perhaps it could have been
handled better.

I had never heard that sentiment ever and am not sure how to take the “it could have been handled better.” I am fairly certain it should have been but all over the world the same things were happening, which doesn’t make it right, but I can see her perspective and honor it. I imagined the US for a while in this alternate history and can’t imagine I would be here; whatever it may have been, it may not have been a bastion for immigration during a world war, or maybe my grandparents would have left eastern Europe for anything else.

Some favorites:

DECEMBER 26TH

I also want to explore the breakdown of boundaries between us. This “communal” stance is inherent in the Native American heritage. The non-linear non-boundaries non-fenced open-prairied words.

I want to explore my memories & their relational aspects to the present. I was born between 2 heritages & I want to explore that empty space, that place-between-2-places, that walk-in-2-worlds. I want to do it a new way.

The word is important in Native American tradition. You speak the path on which you walk. Your words make the trail.

JANUARY 2

Caught in the storm of return. Everything stacked up. The floor of Tucson. Why does it stick with me? The plain grit I start from. Yucca and saguaro in surrender. The desert is the synthesis. The aftermath of war. Writing is a dance of words. The shape of motion. It’s field seeds on my socks. The overall movement of the field in my head. Wiring sees into the night with the clarity of day. It’s life force & the shifts of the moon- the feet, the loping arms, the core of imagination.

The trucks and the dotted line on the road are more real than the shadows and dreams that wait in their own world, sometimes breaking thru in poems or the last of the red sky that roams over western Arkansas. & in the dark you see more clearly sometimes if you looked off to the side. That’s where the poem is.

JANUARY 20

Writing is the hammer and chisel that breaks down the established way of thinking. A concrete event, then an abstraction. An image, then a thought. Finally, writing builds another establishment with the fragments. I would like to go farther, but I feel I must make use of myself as a found object.

FEBRUARY/THE IRON CRANBERRY

My car has over 100,000 miles. I travel for the State Arts Council. I make 600-mile round trips to visit my mother, who has had cancer now for three years.
…
I feel a responsibility to my words. Poetry is road maintenance for a fragmented world which seeks to be kept together. It’s been an integral activity for a long time. I travel through windstorms, the summer heat, & winter blizzards. The vast unspeakable prairie- the poet only has to gather the words.
…
I have this tall grass prairie, this prayer-ee for my territory & always in travel, in the act of migration, is the POEM. The holy word is foundation for our civilization.

ETHNIC ARTS: THE CULTURAL BRIDGE

I want to share what it’s like to think as a
Native American. This will be nonlinear. There
Will be no outcome. No motive. No logic. I’m
Simply sharing the experience of it, the
Impressions during the migration of a paper.
Maybe something in the coyote-trickster tradition.

I started writing from a middle ground. Between
2 cultures. Looking down there was not much
Under me. A blind spot where the floor didn’t
Meet. I pulled up some mud, put it on turtle’s
back, as the creation myth says. It grew into
land. A solid place to stay, yet capable of
movement. The dream of it traveling.
…
As far as style,
Often there is repetition of motifs. That
Repetition causes another state of mind
By going over & over
Until the mind leaves the form & enters
The movement, the process of going.
Until the heart reaches the spirit it seeks.
…
Art is discovery of connecting threads not only
Within ourselves but in the universal condition of
Life. Our “humanness” is the same whatever the
ethnic group. We just have different medicines
for carrying those differences.

For me, art is pacification & purification of
Old grievances. I write about the loss of land
& I think it had to happen. Can you imagine
American remaining as it was while the rest of
The world moved on? Perhaps it could have been
Handled better.

ENUCLEATION
The origin of a poem should be something like the origin
Of the universe. After the bang of inspiration, there should
Be an imbalance of matter & antimatter. After they destroy
One another in the initial of struggle of getting the poem on
The page, there should be some matter left over. That debris,
When cooled and solidified, is the “poem.”

Poetry should be nuciferous. One of the nut-bearing
Trees in the garden. It should open knowledge & under-
Standing. It should be getting us all into trouble, then be
The healing balm.

[Lizzie]

I'm getting a lot of great to-reads from the book list 500 Great Books By Women, which got set up as a Goodreads group. There are cool demographics in the list, and I've been tracking them in my reading with a spreadsheet (and so can yoouuu).

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading again! :)

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This daybook of prose fragments that often read like prose poems, sometimes read like micro essays, and occasionally--as a daybook should--read like I'm snooping into someone's journal gives an insight into an original mind, with an original language at work. Often literally or metaphorically on the road between home and schools she's visiting as Poet in Residence, between past and present, between the Native American and European sides of herself, Glancy explores the writer's work in its fullest sense.

[Amy Galloway · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diane Glancy describes life after a divorce, raising children, losing her mother and searching for her heritage in this interesting collection of vignettes that the members of my discussion group in my advanced writing seminar dubbed a "poetic memoir". At times confusing (she makes up her own words! ), at other times beautifully rendered, it is always an authentic search for self while traversing life's many roads.

[Lora · Rating 2 out of 5]

As I noted at the time, the book was named Best North American Indian Literature and is essentially a diary. I enjoyed her imagery but for my taste there were too many essays and advice on writing. I would have preferred more on culture and language.