WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.170 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.170 --> 00:00:03.160 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:06.610 align:middle line:84%
"Laura Tohe grew up in a
Navajo Nation in Crystal,

00:00:06.610 --> 00:00:09.100 align:middle line:84%
New Mexico near the
[? Chooshgai ?] Mountains where

00:00:09.100 --> 00:00:12.280 align:middle line:84%
she learned to speak,
both Diné and English,

00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:15.580 align:middle line:84%
and where her grandmother was
one of the first Diné teachers.

00:00:15.580 --> 00:00:19.000 align:middle line:84%
Tohe also grew up in a Native
American boarding school,

00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:22.510 align:middle line:84%
an offshoot of the 19th
century schools instituted

00:00:22.510 --> 00:00:27.190 align:middle line:84%
by General Richard Henry Pratt,
whose maxim, kill the Indian,

00:00:27.190 --> 00:00:31.480 align:middle line:84%
save the man, is steeped into
the boarding school culture.

00:00:31.480 --> 00:00:35.560 align:middle line:84%
Likewise, Tohe's
histories are steeped

00:00:35.560 --> 00:00:39.820 align:middle line:84%
into the stories and poetry of
No Parole Today, a collection

00:00:39.820 --> 00:00:42.760 align:middle line:84%
for which she received a
Poetry of the Year Award

00:00:42.760 --> 00:00:45.160 align:middle line:84%
from the Word Craft
Circle of Native Writers

00:00:45.160 --> 00:00:46.900 align:middle line:90%
and Storytellers.

00:00:46.900 --> 00:00:50.260 align:middle line:84%
Tohe is also the author of
the chapbook Making Friends

00:00:50.260 --> 00:00:53.290 align:middle line:84%
With Water, which was
translated into modern dance

00:00:53.290 --> 00:00:57.220 align:middle line:84%
and performed by The Moving
Company in Omaha, Nebraska.

00:00:57.220 --> 00:01:00.280 align:middle line:84%
Her collaboration about Canyon
de Chelly with astronomer

00:01:00.280 --> 00:01:02.560 align:middle line:84%
and photographer
Stephen Strom is

00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:05.349 align:middle line:84%
forthcoming from the
University of Arizona Press.

00:01:05.349 --> 00:01:08.050 align:middle line:84%
And she has co-edited
Sister Nations,

00:01:08.050 --> 00:01:10.150 align:middle line:84%
an anthology of Native
American women's

00:01:10.150 --> 00:01:12.970 align:middle line:90%
writing with poet Heid Erdrich.

00:01:12.970 --> 00:01:15.160 align:middle line:84%
In addition, Tohe
has collaborated

00:01:15.160 --> 00:01:17.710 align:middle line:84%
with Hispanic and
African-American artists

00:01:17.710 --> 00:01:20.200 align:middle line:84%
to write the play
The Story of Me

00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:23.530 align:middle line:84%
commissioned by the Emmy
Gifford Children's Theater.

00:01:23.530 --> 00:01:27.070 align:middle line:84%
She has academic degrees
in psychology and English,

00:01:27.070 --> 00:01:29.200 align:middle line:84%
and is on the faculty of
the Department of English

00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:32.040 align:middle line:90%
at Arizona State University.

00:01:32.040 --> 00:01:35.230 align:middle line:84%
In No Parole Today, Tohe
compares the boarding school

00:01:35.230 --> 00:01:38.680 align:middle line:84%
experience with prison
incarceration, the shared

00:01:38.680 --> 00:01:42.910 align:middle line:84%
submission or resistance to
an inability to be sprung.

00:01:42.910 --> 00:01:45.820 align:middle line:84%
In a series of poems in the
latter section of the book,

00:01:45.820 --> 00:01:49.090 align:middle line:84%
she unflinchingly explores
death as the consequence

00:01:49.090 --> 00:01:51.130 align:middle line:84%
of suppressing
the spirit of both

00:01:51.130 --> 00:01:53.620 align:middle line:90%
an individual and a culture.

00:01:53.620 --> 00:01:56.230 align:middle line:84%
And in "So I Blow
Smoke in Her Face,"

00:01:56.230 --> 00:01:58.750 align:middle line:84%
the narrator finds
reprieve and a path

00:01:58.750 --> 00:02:00.880 align:middle line:84%
to resistance in her
memories of freedom

00:02:00.880 --> 00:02:03.160 align:middle line:84%
at the base of the
[? Chooshgai ?] Mountains.

00:02:03.160 --> 00:02:06.280 align:middle line:84%
The sentences of No
Parole Today are literally

00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:09.970 align:middle line:84%
broken in her penultimate
poem, "Easter Sunday," which

00:02:09.970 --> 00:02:15.040 align:middle line:84%
tells in syntactic fragments the
story of sustenance, a family

00:02:15.040 --> 00:02:16.480 align:middle line:90%
celebration.

00:02:16.480 --> 00:02:18.220 align:middle line:90%
And this is from the poem.

00:02:18.220 --> 00:02:19.420 align:middle line:90%
Ribs cooked.

00:02:19.420 --> 00:02:20.830 align:middle line:90%
Coffee boiled.

00:02:20.830 --> 00:02:22.240 align:middle line:90%
Fry bread stacked.

00:02:22.240 --> 00:02:23.470 align:middle line:90%
Stew boiled.

00:02:23.470 --> 00:02:24.940 align:middle line:90%
Stomach rumbling.

00:02:24.940 --> 00:02:26.260 align:middle line:90%
Mouth watery.

00:02:26.260 --> 00:02:27.940 align:middle line:90%
Anticipation.

00:02:27.940 --> 00:02:29.170 align:middle line:90%
Plates full.

00:02:29.170 --> 00:02:30.250 align:middle line:90%
Sit down.

00:02:30.250 --> 00:02:31.390 align:middle line:90%
Under tree.

00:02:31.390 --> 00:02:33.010 align:middle line:90%
Family together.

00:02:33.010 --> 00:02:34.270 align:middle line:90%
Give thanks.

00:02:34.270 --> 00:02:36.160 align:middle line:90%
We eat now.

00:02:36.160 --> 00:02:38.980 align:middle line:84%
The book returns two complete
sentences in the final poem,

00:02:38.980 --> 00:02:42.340 align:middle line:84%
"At Mexican Spring," in
which the narrator finally

00:02:42.340 --> 00:02:45.400 align:middle line:84%
sprung from the confines
of her cultural struggle,

00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:47.110 align:middle line:90%
if not from the struggle itself.

00:02:47.110 --> 00:02:49.750 align:middle line:84%
Sees herself as
a moment in time,

00:02:49.750 --> 00:02:53.170 align:middle line:84%
linking the ancient stories
of first woman and first man

00:02:53.170 --> 00:02:55.870 align:middle line:84%
to the future stories
of her children."

00:02:55.870 --> 00:02:59.350 align:middle line:84%
In this moment in time, we
are lucky to have her here.

00:02:59.350 --> 00:03:01.590 align:middle line:90%
Please welcome Laura Tohe.

00:03:01.590 --> 00:03:08.000 align:middle line:90%