WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.620 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:01.620 --> 00:00:03.630 align:middle line:84% If anybody has any questions about-- 00:00:03.630 --> 00:00:06.543 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.543 --> 00:00:07.710 align:middle line:90% you guys are probably tired. 00:00:07.710 --> 00:00:09.780 align:middle line:84% But if anyone has any questions that they 00:00:09.780 --> 00:00:14.550 align:middle line:84% want to ask about what I read or things in the anthology 00:00:14.550 --> 00:00:18.690 align:middle line:84% or any kinds of questions, I'm happy to answer questions. 00:00:18.690 --> 00:00:22.050 align:middle line:90% 00:00:22.050 --> 00:00:22.550 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:00:22.550 --> 00:00:25.693 align:middle line:90% How long have you been writing? 00:00:25.693 --> 00:00:27.860 align:middle line:84% Oh, I've been writing ever since I was a little kid. 00:00:27.860 --> 00:00:30.500 align:middle line:90% 00:00:30.500 --> 00:00:35.080 align:middle line:84% I've been writing seriously since about 1967. 00:00:35.080 --> 00:00:35.580 align:middle line:90% So. 00:00:35.580 --> 00:00:39.550 align:middle line:90% 00:00:39.550 --> 00:00:40.060 align:middle line:90% Yes? 00:00:40.060 --> 00:00:43.030 align:middle line:84% Was that your song, or was that an old song that you-- 00:00:43.030 --> 00:00:46.510 align:middle line:90% No, it's mine. 00:00:46.510 --> 00:00:48.850 align:middle line:90% One thing I try not-- 00:00:48.850 --> 00:00:51.700 align:middle line:84% I don't know whether it is, I try not to do it, 00:00:51.700 --> 00:00:58.450 align:middle line:84% but what I'm interested in is new things. 00:00:58.450 --> 00:01:00.850 align:middle line:84% Things that are my own, that come out 00:01:00.850 --> 00:01:04.870 align:middle line:84% of a feeling or a sense of the traditional songs. 00:01:04.870 --> 00:01:07.630 align:middle line:90% 00:01:07.630 --> 00:01:11.490 align:middle line:84% Not that it's wrong to use the ritual songs 00:01:11.490 --> 00:01:13.240 align:middle line:84% and ceremonial songs and things like that, 00:01:13.240 --> 00:01:17.590 align:middle line:84% but I'd rather come up with my own kinds of things 00:01:17.590 --> 00:01:21.790 align:middle line:84% and say that they're from the same feeling, you know? 00:01:21.790 --> 00:01:23.530 align:middle line:90% 00:01:23.530 --> 00:01:27.820 align:middle line:84% Actually, to me that works, because it's not 00:01:27.820 --> 00:01:29.830 align:middle line:84% only elemental, it means that you 00:01:29.830 --> 00:01:32.172 align:middle line:84% are continuing the tradition with the way 00:01:32.172 --> 00:01:33.880 align:middle line:84% that it-- it comes alive that way 00:01:33.880 --> 00:01:35.957 align:middle line:84% rather than being merely a nostalgic echo. 00:01:35.957 --> 00:01:37.540 align:middle line:84% I mean, you bring [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:01:37.540 --> 00:01:39.580 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] and that's [INAUDIBLE] 00:01:39.580 --> 00:01:40.720 align:middle line:90% Glad you see it that way. 00:01:40.720 --> 00:01:43.990 align:middle line:90% 00:01:43.990 --> 00:01:44.640 align:middle line:90% Any other? 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.640 align:middle line:90% 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:49.380 align:middle line:90% I was sort of worried-- 00:01:49.380 --> 00:01:54.310 align:middle line:84% when I wrote the story, the character's a Navajo woman. 00:01:54.310 --> 00:01:58.440 align:middle line:84% And I said to somebody, when people studied it and read it, 00:01:58.440 --> 00:02:02.160 align:middle line:84% they should read it as an attempt by a Pueblo person 00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:03.810 align:middle line:90% to create a Navajo character. 00:02:03.810 --> 00:02:07.002 align:middle line:90% 00:02:07.002 --> 00:02:09.419 align:middle line:84% There are certain things there, like about the death thing 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:11.039 align:middle line:90% and stuff like that. 00:02:11.039 --> 00:02:13.770 align:middle line:84% But I thought to myself, well, that's who I am, 00:02:13.770 --> 00:02:16.590 align:middle line:84% and I really wanted to do this woman. 00:02:16.590 --> 00:02:19.740 align:middle line:84% And I would never claim that my Navajo woman 00:02:19.740 --> 00:02:21.060 align:middle line:90% was a Navajo-Navajo woman. 00:02:21.060 --> 00:02:24.450 align:middle line:84% She's a Laguna woman's version of a Navajo woman. 00:02:24.450 --> 00:02:25.980 align:middle line:90% And that was one thing. 00:02:25.980 --> 00:02:28.050 align:middle line:84% Sometimes I'm a little timid about doing 00:02:28.050 --> 00:02:32.680 align:middle line:84% that, but anyhow, that was just something I wanted to say. 00:02:32.680 --> 00:02:33.930 align:middle line:90% Are there any other questions? 00:02:33.930 --> 00:02:34.920 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:02:34.920 --> 00:02:38.130 align:middle line:84% Have you had a chance to get to know the Indigenous 00:02:38.130 --> 00:02:40.080 align:middle line:90% people of Alaska at all? 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:41.310 align:middle line:90% The Indigenous people? 00:02:41.310 --> 00:02:42.570 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:02:42.570 --> 00:02:45.465 align:middle line:90% I've made some friends up there. 00:02:45.465 --> 00:02:48.900 align:middle line:90% They're town Indian people. 00:02:48.900 --> 00:02:51.900 align:middle line:84% And my experience has always been, with growing up 00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:54.360 align:middle line:90% on the reservation-- 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:56.340 align:middle line:84% I'm not sure whether the differences I see 00:02:56.340 --> 00:02:58.303 align:middle line:84% are because these are urban people or-- 00:02:58.303 --> 00:03:00.345 align:middle line:84% I'm sure part of it, though, is that the Tlingits 00:03:00.345 --> 00:03:04.830 align:middle line:84% and Haidas and Tsimshians are a different sort of people. 00:03:04.830 --> 00:03:07.590 align:middle line:84% I think I'd have to be there a long time to really say, 00:03:07.590 --> 00:03:08.865 align:middle line:90% oh yeah, I know. 00:03:08.865 --> 00:03:10.740 align:middle line:84% I mean, I have some friends and acquaintances 00:03:10.740 --> 00:03:13.770 align:middle line:84% but to get a real feeling for that land 00:03:13.770 --> 00:03:15.420 align:middle line:90% and for the cultures-- 00:03:15.420 --> 00:03:17.385 align:middle line:90% it takes a long time, I think. 00:03:17.385 --> 00:03:19.900 align:middle line:90% 00:03:19.900 --> 00:03:20.400 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:22.500 align:middle line:84% Do you write everything in English? 00:03:22.500 --> 00:03:23.520 align:middle line:90% Yeah, pretty much. 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:27.270 align:middle line:90% 00:03:27.270 --> 00:03:29.280 align:middle line:84% Simon Ortiz and I talk about this all the time. 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:33.030 align:middle line:90% 00:03:33.030 --> 00:03:35.220 align:middle line:84% There's a challenge to working with the English 00:03:35.220 --> 00:03:38.610 align:middle line:84% and coming up with something based 00:03:38.610 --> 00:03:41.388 align:middle line:84% upon the way we speak English at home, 00:03:41.388 --> 00:03:42.930 align:middle line:84% with the different rhythms and so on, 00:03:42.930 --> 00:03:44.513 align:middle line:84% to come up with something a little bit 00:03:44.513 --> 00:03:47.820 align:middle line:84% different than your usual kind of English. 00:03:47.820 --> 00:03:52.350 align:middle line:84% The only place where I sometimes-- 00:03:52.350 --> 00:03:55.320 align:middle line:84% beginnings and endings of "The Chance," which 00:03:55.320 --> 00:03:57.540 align:middle line:90% are not translatable anyway. 00:03:57.540 --> 00:03:58.650 align:middle line:90% Those are nice. 00:03:58.650 --> 00:03:59.880 align:middle line:90% And I like to make up my own. 00:03:59.880 --> 00:04:03.570 align:middle line:90% 00:04:03.570 --> 00:04:05.430 align:middle line:84% There's some in this novel I'm writing now, 00:04:05.430 --> 00:04:07.440 align:middle line:90% but yeah, I work in English. 00:04:07.440 --> 00:04:10.240 align:middle line:90% 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:11.560 align:middle line:90% Anybody else have-- Yeah? 00:04:11.560 --> 00:04:13.970 align:middle line:84% I just think that that was such a beautiful piece, so-- 00:04:13.970 --> 00:04:14.620 align:middle line:90% Oh. 00:04:14.620 --> 00:04:16.079 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:16.579 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:04:16.579 --> 00:04:18.890 align:middle line:90% I'm glad you thought so. 00:04:18.890 --> 00:04:19.390 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:04:19.390 --> 00:04:20.872 align:middle line:90% OK? 00:04:20.872 --> 00:04:24.330 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:24.330 --> 00:04:32.250 align:middle line:90% 00:04:32.250 --> 00:04:35.490 align:middle line:84% I should do a couple of things that Leslie won't do. 00:04:35.490 --> 00:04:38.880 align:middle line:84% And that's plug what she's written. 00:04:38.880 --> 00:04:41.220 align:middle line:84% The anthologies that she's referred to 00:04:41.220 --> 00:04:43.830 align:middle line:84% is a thing called The Man to Send Rain Clouds, which 00:04:43.830 --> 00:04:45.360 align:middle line:90% many of you've probably seen. 00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:48.510 align:middle line:84% It's edited by Kenneth Rosen and published 00:04:48.510 --> 00:04:51.960 align:middle line:90% by the Viking Press in 1974. 00:04:51.960 --> 00:04:55.260 align:middle line:84% She has a book of poems published by the Greenfield 00:04:55.260 --> 00:04:56.250 align:middle line:90% Press, is it? 00:04:56.250 --> 00:04:57.390 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:04:57.390 --> 00:05:01.110 align:middle line:84% Titled Laguna Woman, and that was also published in 1974. 00:05:01.110 --> 00:05:03.280 align:middle line:84% So I'd like to thank Leslie for being here 00:05:03.280 --> 00:05:07.350 align:middle line:84% on behalf of the AmerIn club and the American Indian Studies 00:05:07.350 --> 00:05:09.660 align:middle line:84% Department, which sponsored her visit. 00:05:09.660 --> 00:05:12.510 align:middle line:84% And I'd like to thank you for coming. 00:05:12.510 --> 00:05:15.500 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:15.500 --> 00:05:16.000 align:middle line:90%