WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.190 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.190 --> 00:00:06.210 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read one by D'Arcy McNickle. 00:00:06.210 --> 00:00:08.910 align:middle line:84% And this one I want to read because it's 00:00:08.910 --> 00:00:11.460 align:middle line:84% an example of the liminality of language 00:00:11.460 --> 00:00:14.790 align:middle line:84% and how language can return us to a sense of homeland 00:00:14.790 --> 00:00:16.740 align:middle line:90% as a place of being in between. 00:00:16.740 --> 00:00:19.500 align:middle line:84% As we all know, Indigenous homelands in this country 00:00:19.500 --> 00:00:23.730 align:middle line:84% have endured a violent mapping and languaging. 00:00:23.730 --> 00:00:27.720 align:middle line:84% And poetics I believe can become a way of remapping. 00:00:27.720 --> 00:00:29.490 align:middle line:84% Many of the poems in this anthology 00:00:29.490 --> 00:00:31.680 align:middle line:84% critique the imperial notion of the land 00:00:31.680 --> 00:00:34.680 align:middle line:84% as something to be possessed for the purpose of actualizing 00:00:34.680 --> 00:00:37.100 align:middle line:90% individualistic power. 00:00:37.100 --> 00:00:40.220 align:middle line:84% This national striving to possess and delimit 00:00:40.220 --> 00:00:42.320 align:middle line:84% is comparable to the way we strive 00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:45.000 align:middle line:90% through language to define. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:48.090 align:middle line:84% Poetry turns against this impulse, 00:00:48.090 --> 00:00:50.820 align:middle line:84% spiraling, drawing, and retracting 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:52.860 align:middle line:90% location and possession. 00:00:52.860 --> 00:00:55.500 align:middle line:84% Poetry does not define or answer, 00:00:55.500 --> 00:00:58.590 align:middle line:84% it exists in the open landscape of the question. 00:00:58.590 --> 00:01:03.740 align:middle line:84% It looks both ways into the past and the future. 00:01:03.740 --> 00:01:08.450 align:middle line:84% In D'Arcy McNickle's poem we can see the poem embracing 00:01:08.450 --> 00:01:14.270 align:middle line:84% not knowing, being lost, and finding a homeland internally, 00:01:14.270 --> 00:01:16.205 align:middle line:90% in the very journey of seeking. 00:01:16.205 --> 00:01:18.830 align:middle line:90% 00:01:18.830 --> 00:01:24.500 align:middle line:84% D'Arcy McNickle was born in 1904 Métis and confederated Salish 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:26.000 align:middle line:90% and Kootenai tribes. 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:29.850 align:middle line:84% He was an author and a community organizer. 00:01:29.850 --> 00:01:33.070 align:middle line:84% He was born and raised in St. Ignatius, Montana. 00:01:33.070 --> 00:01:39.330 align:middle line:84% So this poem is called "Man Hesitates, But Life Urges." 00:01:39.330 --> 00:01:42.300 align:middle line:84% There is this shifting endless film 00:01:42.300 --> 00:01:46.560 align:middle line:84% and I have followed it down the valleys and over the hills, 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:49.830 align:middle line:84% pointing with a wavering finger when it disappeared 00:01:49.830 --> 00:01:53.520 align:middle line:84% in purple forest patches with its ruffle and wave 00:01:53.520 --> 00:01:56.950 align:middle line:84% to the slightest breathing wind god. 00:01:56.950 --> 00:02:01.450 align:middle line:84% There is this film seen suddenly far off when the sun, 00:02:01.450 --> 00:02:06.070 align:middle line:84% walking to his setting, turns back for a last look . 00:02:06.070 --> 00:02:08.919 align:middle line:84% And out there on the far, far prairie, 00:02:08.919 --> 00:02:12.610 align:middle line:84% a lonely drowsing cabin catches and holds 00:02:12.610 --> 00:02:16.840 align:middle line:84% a glint for one how-endless moment. 00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:21.370 align:middle line:84% In a staring window, the fire and song of the martyrs. 00:02:21.370 --> 00:02:24.220 align:middle line:84% There is this film that has passed to my fingers 00:02:24.220 --> 00:02:27.490 align:middle line:84% and I have trembled, afraid to touch. 00:02:27.490 --> 00:02:29.380 align:middle line:84% And in the eyes of one who had wanted 00:02:29.380 --> 00:02:32.860 align:middle line:84% to give what I had asked, but hesitated, 00:02:32.860 --> 00:02:40.040 align:middle line:84% tried, and then came with a weary, aged, "Not quite." 00:02:40.040 --> 00:02:44.780 align:middle line:84% I could but see that single realmless point of time. 00:02:44.780 --> 00:02:50.520 align:middle line:84% All that is sad, and tired, and old, and endless, 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:52.990 align:middle line:90% shifting film. 00:02:52.990 --> 00:02:56.950 align:middle line:84% And I went again down the valleys and over the hills, 00:02:56.950 --> 00:03:02.080 align:middle line:84% pointing with wavering finger, ever reaching to touch, 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:05.905 align:middle line:84% trembling, ever fearful to touch. 00:03:05.905 --> 00:03:10.510 align:middle line:90% 00:03:10.510 --> 00:03:12.130 align:middle line:84% I think this poem is a good example 00:03:12.130 --> 00:03:16.000 align:middle line:84% of the retracing of land that can happen through language. 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:19.840 align:middle line:84% In this poem the narrator speaks from a state of displacement 00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:23.830 align:middle line:84% and placement at once, he stays present in the middle space, 00:03:23.830 --> 00:03:27.370 align:middle line:84% seeing but not quite seeing, on a way somewhere 00:03:27.370 --> 00:03:29.020 align:middle line:90% but not arriving. 00:03:29.020 --> 00:03:32.380 align:middle line:84% Healing I believe is not something we arrive at, 00:03:32.380 --> 00:03:36.310 align:middle line:84% it is a space of transformation we must transit through. 00:03:36.310 --> 00:03:38.770 align:middle line:84% The poem reminds me of that space. 00:03:38.770 --> 00:03:40.540 align:middle line:84% It is a poem about the conditions 00:03:40.540 --> 00:03:45.930 align:middle line:84% of that liminality, which is also this space of healing.