Outcroppings from Navajoland by Donald Levering (review)

174 Western American Literature cavalierly dismissed due to overeducation or scarcity of rhyme. Excluded, by Korn’scriteria, are some plumb forked waddies and rannihans who have spent lifetimes cowboying on the open range. From the standpoint of authenticity, this comes close to telling cowboys what they ought to be writing, and we all know that ain’t good folklore. It’s also not the safest spot to be in, around a bunch of cowboys. Anthrolopologists know this as influencing, even creating, the culture you study. Since last year’s Cowboy Poets Gathering, some working cowboys have said that everyone on their crew now writes poetry. I don’t in any way mean to discourage poetry or any other art or craft, by anyone, anywhere, from what­ ever inspiration, and I’m glad that more cowboys are writing poetry. No doubt some good new poetry will settle out of the flurry. And there is no question that we owe the deepest gratitude and respect for the skill, hard work, and dedication of folklorists such as Korn and Edison, and to those such as Hal Cannon and Jim Griffith who created the Cowboy Poets Gathering. This was a grand event, long overdue, and the resultant collections and publicity have definitely put cowboy poetry on the cultural map of America. But someone still has to work the cattle, and it seems vaguely similar to the Western Art boom of the mid-70s, when every issue of Southwest Art or Western Horseman carried articles on another wad of young cowboy artists doing mediocre bronzes. However, I’m sure cowboys will survive it, being tough, smart, perceptive and resilient. For the main strength of any culture isits flexibility and capacity for inner growth, without which it will surely stagnate and die. The point is that cowboys should be free to explore, hone and perfect their poetic craft, each as he sees fit, as individual as the crease of his hat. Cowboys themselves are known for their sincere and open acceptance of those who serve out the apprenticeship and make a hand, whatever their origins may be. It’s one of the oldest traditions in the West, and the men and women who ride to cattle and write poetry should never be corraled by a bunch of scholars who can do neither. Cowboy poetry is, or should be, as large as the hearts of those who write it, as vast and powerful as the great land they ride. ZAC REISNER Cora, Wyoming Outcroppings from Navajoland. By Donald Levering. (Tsaile, Arizona: Navajo Community College Press, 1984. 63 pages, $9.00 hardcover.) And a handsome “outcropping” this is. The poetry is accompanied by, and often reflected in (or vice versa), ten impressive landscape photographs reminiscent of Edward Curtis. The type face, paper quality and tint, the page Reviews 175 format, and the impressive terra cotta and black cover present the reader with what has now become a rare phenomenon—the book as art object. Levering’s concentration in this book is “Navajoland,” and he divides the poetry into four numbered sections. The poems move from reflections on the land as it was long “before the Flood / when the Navajo / ascended through a reed / to this Fifth Level / of horses, white men / and whiskey” (from “Silica”), through warnings of, and mordant commentary on, the white man’s technology that “would spread the entrails / of Mother Earth over the land” (in “Uranium Tailings”). In the fourth section, Levering seems to allow him­ self to relax and to warm to the land as a contemporary man who cares deeply about his place on this “turtle island.” In “Chameleon” he speaks directly to the lizard he has just killed on the highway: “Your perfect dance / of vacilla­ tion, / the rainbows / of your flesh / in the instant / before death / were your decision. / The ugly thud / of bad luck / is mine.” He relates (in “Notes from the Arroyo,” the final poem of the volume) to the mesa and to the arroyo and to the “broad stream bed / whose rocks have been panning / the sun’s gold / . . . The wind has quit mourning / hear your own song / curving over stone.” The poet’s song is “sung...