WHEREAS
Layli Long Soldier
2017
Graywolf Press
120 pages
$16.00
Reviewed by Clara B. Jones*
“WHEREAS confronts the
coercive language of the United States government in its responses,
treaties, and apologies to Native America peoples and tribes, and
reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its
perpetrators.” Publisher's release
“I am a citizen of the United States
and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a
citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation—and in this dual citizenship I
must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I
must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.” Layli Long
Soldier
Minority poets have found their voices,
writing a variety of forms and themes from the conventional to the
boldly experimental. Shortlisted for the 2017 National Book Award in
Poetry, Layli Long Soldier's reputation has catapulted into the
limelight with the publication of her debut book, WHEREAS.
With an impressive grasp on storytelling, common in indigenous and
minority traditions, Long Soldier introduces readers to her personal
and tribal histories—emphasizing acts of cruelty and dismissal
relieved, emotionally and thematically, by her experiences as a
daughter, a partner, and a parent (“Father's Day comma I am not
with you. I stare at a black-and-white photo of you comma my/husband
in a velvet shirt comma your hair tied back and your eyes on the face
of our sleep-/ing daughter.”). In order to decode many of the
poet's references, it is important to know certain aspects of Sioux
history. The book's epigraph, “Now/make room in the mouth/for
grassesgrassesgrasses.”, refers to a tragic event whereby a trader,
Andrew Myrick, refused food to a hungry group of Lakota Sioux,
telling them to eat their own dung mixed with grass. Sometime later,
Myrick's body was found with grass stuffed in his mouth. Throughout
WHEREAS, “grass,” and, to a lesser degree, “green,”
appear (“...I grass/nothing/here I meta-/grass I sleep-/walk
grasses....”; “...split/grass wires/little
bulbs/silver/green/drop/lets....”), forcing the reader to share
Long Soldier's trauma and, possibly, rage. Indeed, many of the poems
address identity, dreams, myth, and the unconscious, and it might be
interesting for an analytical scholar to interpret the poems from a
Freudian perspective (“...a symbol
for/electric/current/something/having the shape/of i/ego...”).
The poet does not stray far from politics (“...who what when where
why/at behest of the local leadership/e.g. Officer, my name is
__________/from Standing Rock....”). Long Soldier's use of white
spaces, erasures, and a variety of forms shows that she is
intentionally disrupting formalist rules, though the poems retain
musicality and are not didactic or literal for the most part. Part 2
of the book, WHEREAS, refers to a proclamation written by Barak Obama
apologizing to Indigenous Americans for their treatment during the
colonial period (and beyond?). According to Long Soldier, no
Indigenous Americans were invited to the ceremony and, as I recall,
the event was not widely reported in the media. In my opinion, Part 2
is the most moving section of the book, and a strong case might be
made that it should be placed before Part 1, THESE BEING THE
CONCERNS, in order to provide context and currency for the Myrick
incident. WHEREAS, is written as a Proclamation in its own right,
rendering a powerful response to Obama's oversights (“I
recognize/the special legal and/political relationship/Indian tribes
have with/the United States and/the solemn/covenant with the land/we
share.”). While Long Soldier's stories are sometimes heartbreaking,
her writing does not take the reader to the edge of despair. This
young poet's work is highly recommended, and I hope that, in future,
the poetry community will embrace many more Indigenous American
poets.
*Originally published in i am not a silent poet, 2017
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