Occupation: Poet Birth: October 24, 1939 Death: May 29, 2008
My mother told me stories all the time... And in all of those stories she told me who I was, who I was supposed to be, whom I came from, and who wo….
We are the women of daylight; of clocks and steel foundries, of drugstores and streetlights, of superhighways that slice our days in two. Our dreams ….
In the native world, major gods come in trios, duos, and groups. It is the habit of non-natives to discover the supreme being, the one and only head ….
The shadows cannot speak..
It's a little-known linguistic curiosity that the name Jehovah or Jaweh is the same name as Eve; Havva, the counterpart name in Farsi, the language s….
For the American Indian, the ability of all creatures to share in the process of ongoing creation makes all things sacred..
There are many female gods recognized and honored by the tribes and Nations. Femaleness was highly valued, both respected and feared, and all social ….
Healing the self means committing ourselves to a wholehearted willingness to be what and how we are-beings frail and fragile, strong and passionate, ….
In the Native American tradition... a man, if he's a mature adult, nurtures life. He does rituals that will help things grow, he helps raise the kids….
Snowflakes, leaves, humans, plants, raindrops, stars, molecules, microscopic entities all come in communities. The singular cannot in reality exist..
Truth, acceptance of the truth, is a shattering experience. It shatters the binding shroud of culture trance. It rips apart smugness, arrogance, supe….
We are the land. To the best of my understanding, that is the fundamental idea that permeates American Indian life..
Human beings need to belong to a tradition and equally need to know about the world in which they find themselves..
The root of oppression is the loss of memory..
I am not especially defined by my sex life, nor complete without it..
English is, from my point of view as an Americanist, an ethnicity. And English literature should be studied in Comparative Literature. And American l….
Indians think it is important to remember, while Americans believe it is important to forget..
In America, law substitutes for custom..
Idealization of a group is a natural consequence of separation from the group; in other words, it is a by-product of alienation..
Hoop Dancer is a rendering of my understanding of the process by which one enters into timelessness -- that place where one is whole..
America does not seem to remember that it derived its wealth, its values, its food, much of its medicine, and a large part of its "dream" from Native….