Explorations in Navajo Poetry and Poetics

Introduction: Navajo Poetry and Poetics

1 The What and How of the Story People tell stories. If ethnopoetics has taught us anything, it is that while the “what” of a story (the content) is important, the “how” of the story (the poetic structuring) is of equal importance. This book is about the ways that the how of the story and the what of the story are intertwined. The stories here are Navajo poetry, both written and performed orally. Fairly early in my ethnographic and linguistic research on the Navajo Nation on the emergence of written Navajo poetry, I attempted to elicit indigenous Navajo terms for poetry. The most common response that I was able to elicit was: hane’ (story, narrative). Diné College (the tribally controlled college with its main campus located in Tsaile, Arizona) promotes the phrase hane’ naach’ąąh (designed stories). However, in general , Navajos I talked with used hane’. Poetry was, then, a kind of story or narrative. Poetry, like hane’, is meant to be publicly shared (see also Peterson 2006). There are a number of very good reasons to approach Navajo poetry as a kind of storytelling. That is one of the focuses of this book: The ways that Navajo poetry is a kind of story-telling. I argue that it is through a number of poetic devices that Navajo written poetry is linked with Navajo oral traditions. Navajo poetry is also linked with other traditions as well. I further argue that these poetic forms reveal something about the felt attachments to language that Navajo poets have. I believe it is important to understand such felt attachments to language , especially—as in the case of Navajo—when the language is threatened . Young Navajos are not learning the language at a rate that will Introduction Navajo Poetry and Poetics A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. W.H. Auden 2 IntroductIon ensure its continued persistence. It is also the case that many Navajos have developed felt attachments to English as well. That is also worthy of investigation. In the spring of 2000, I drove up to the Navajo Nation to begin fieldwork on the emergence of Navajo written poetry. I was a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, and I was going there to do my dissertation fieldwork. I would live for a time in Chinle, Arizona (three months), and then, for a longer period of time (twelve months), outside Lukachukai, Arizona. I left the Navajo Nation in August of 2001. Since that time, I have corresponded frequently with Navajo poets and, in the summers of 2007 and 2008, I again conducted ethnographic and linguistic research on the Navajo Nation. This time, I lived north of Shiprock, New Mexico. When I originally began my research on contemporary Navajo poetry, I had hoped to focus exclusively on Navajo-language poetry. This was such a colossal mistake that I am embarrassed now to write about it. However, I think there is a lesson here. My bias was and is not an uncommon one. I was interested in some “authentic” Navajo poetry. To be “authentic” it must, by default, be in Navajo. I had confused being Navajo with speaking Navajo. Not all Navajos speak Navajo and not all Navajos that speak Navajo write poetry in Navajo. By excluding poetry written in English, I would have excluded the great majority of poetry currently being written and performed on the Navajo Nation. In fact, poets like Rex Lee Jim, Nia Francisco, and Laura Tohe write poetry in both English and Navajo. Jim once told me that the motivation behind which language to write in had more to do with his personal aesthetics and the content of the poem than with anything else. My embarrassment is mitigated somewhat by the realization that such stereotyping of particular Navajo poets as solely poets in Navajo was not and is not unique to me. Writing in Navajo can also be typecast to individuals . In 2000, on an evening drive down to Gallup, New Mexico, to get dinner, Jim told me about a book of poetry he had submitted to a university press. When the reviews came back—and Jim later showed me the review—one reviewer knowing Jim was the author recommended publication when Jim included the Navajo counterparts. The poems were all in English. There were no Navajo counterparts, and Jim was not inclined navajo poetry and poetIcs 3 to write Navajo...