Joining the Dead

When I first read Fredy Chicangana's, "We Still Have Life On This Earth," I thought that the speaker was a Native American man who was attending a celebration in memory of his dead ancestors. However, after our class discussion I realized that the speaker may be a recently deceased person who is viewing the celebration in memory of his own death and the death of others. In one line in the poem the speaker says,"We laugh and get drunk unhurriedly." The word "unhurriedly" implies that the speaker has an eternity to spend because he is no longer concerned with the limitations of time. In another line, the speaker says that he and others "penetrate the depths of this earth" which signifies that he is dead and buried beneath the earth. Afterwards, the speaker reveals that he is in the "warm navel that carries [them] and takes [them] to memory." The speaker is talking about being part of the dead. The "warm" feeling comes from being buried in the depths of the earth and the "navel" refers to the small whole that was dug to bury his lifeless remains in the enormous body of mother nature. He is being carried "to memory" because he will no longer be identified with his physical body but will live forever in the memory of those who knew him. One can deduct that the speaker is recently deceased because he refers to the dead as a different group when he says, "the space inhabited by our dead." He does not identify himself with the dead yet because he is just joining his ancestors that have been dead for a longer period. This poem can have different speakers depending on how you approach it.

Who Understands Who?

In Linda Noel’s “Understanding Each Other,” the narrator is a woman while the speaker who is in quotes is a man whom was in a committed relationship with the woman. At first, the man mentions that the narrator is “too wild” but she does “not drink raw whisky” he means that she is not wild in the sense of being promiscuous or particularly social with others, he is referring to the woman’s free spirit and strong personality. He goes onto say that “when the salmon season returns [the woman] stand[s] among river willow shadow humming, all the time believing fish can understand why [she] is there.” The woman can identity with the salmon traveling against the current, which symbolizes how she can identify with people who are fighting against adversities in the world. After the man’s quote, the woman points out how the man “left her to marry one whose dreams are laced in perfume and dishwater suds.” This means that the man was preferred to be with a more passive woman. This other woman is not in though with nature because she is surrounded by artificial things such as “perfume” and “dishwater suds.” Overall, it seems like both the narrator and the speaker understand each other and have accepted their differences. The fact that the narrator chooses to say “So he left me” implies that she is not bewildered as to why he left her. Equally important is what the narrator did not say. She did not deny any of the speaker’s assumptions about her personality which implies that the might be true, therefore he also understands her.

How I chose the blog title

The title of this blog is inspired by Antonio Muchado’s famous poem, “Caminante”. This poem talks about creating a road as one travels. This can be applied to the process of reading Native American literature because one can imagine oneself as a traveler who is venturing into the unknown when reading a piece of Native American literature. As one continues to “travel” through the literature, one starts to understand the deeper meaning it holds. The particular understanding of the literature is a “road” that one creates. I used this analogy as the title of my blog page because my blogs are based on my personal interpretations of the pieces of Native American literature that I derive after “traveling” through the literature.