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427 RAY A.YOUNG BEAR b. 1950 Ray a. young bear, a member of the Meskwaki tribe, was raised on the Meskwaki Tribal Settlement in central Iowa, where he lives today with his wife and collaborator, Stella Young Bear. He is a poet, novelist, and performance artist who has toured with his performance group, Black Eagle Child. A native speaker of Meskwaki, Young Bear began writing in English in his teens. He has taught creative writing and Native American literature at numerous institutions, including the University of Iowa and Iowa State University. He writes to correct misrepresentation of Native American culture and to express his sense of sharing the universe with all other beings. Patricia Ploesch has written that Young Bear’s poetry “engages historical and contemporary political issues and employs dream sequences with which he is able to explore the ephemeral boundaries between reality and dreams, between the past and present, and between ancestors and progeny.” further reading Duane Niatum, ed. Harper’s Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry. New York: HarperCollins, 1988. Patricia Ploesch. “Young Bear, Ray.” In The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and Poetry, vol. 5, ed. Jeffrey Gray, James McCorkle, and Mary McAleer Balkun, 1752–53. Westport , Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006. Ray A. Young Bear. Black Eagle Child. New York: Grove Press, 1996. — — — —. Invisible Musician. Duluth, Minn.: Holy Cow! Press, 1990. Wa ta se Na ka mo ni, Vietnam Memorial Last night when the yellow moon of November broke through the last line of turbulent Midwestern clouds, a lone frog, the same one who probably announced the premature spring floods, attempted to sing. Veterans’ Day, and it was sore-throat weather. In reality the invisible musician reminded me of my own doubt. The knowledge that my grandfathers Ø Theresa Hak Kyung Cha 428 1. A term from the Meskwaki language for a veteran ’s song. 2. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington , D.C. were singers as well as composers— one of whom felt the simple utterance of a vowel made for the start of a melody—did not produce the necessary memory or feeling to make a Wadasa Nakamoon,1 Veteran’s Song. All I could think of was the absence of my name on a distant black rock.2 Without this monument I felt I would not be here. For a moment, I questioned why I had to immerse myself in country, controversy and guilt, but I wanted to honor them. Surely, the song they presently listened to along with my grandfathers was the ethereal kind which did not stop. 1990 Young Bear memorializes the Native Americans who served in the Vietnam War, and he reflects on his alienation as well as his desire to respect the tribal men. His bilingual title uses the language of the Meskwaki tribe. You may wish to consider this poem in the context of poems by poets who experienced the Vietnam War firsthand, such as Yusef Komunyakaa, Gerald McCarthy, W. D. Ehrhart, and Bao-Long Chu. You may also wish to relate it to other poems by Native American poets, such as Joy Harjo, Linda Hogan, and Sherman Alexie. THERESA HAK KYUNG CHA 1951–1982 Theresa hak kyung cha was born in Pusan, Korea, the middle child of five siblings. Her mother was a teacher and her father a merchant. In 1962, the family left Korea for the United States. After the family settled in San Francisco, Cha ...

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