The Mother's Tongue

by ERDRICH HEID E.

• ISBN13: 9781844710607
• ISBN10: 1844710602
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-04-01
• Publisher: Lightning Source Inc

Summary

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MINNESOTA BOOK AWARDS 2006. Poems inThe Mother's Tongue move in images of the living world that include plants and creatures both native and non-native to American landscapes. These poems move via persona and personal lyric through expressions of ambivalence about choosing the life of the body - of womanhood and motherhood - through the strange realm of pregnancy into the netherworld of the post-partum period and out into the world again, into the enlarged world, the world at war, the world of work and words. Finally these poems move to enter the world of women as transformed within the love of language - of recovered Ojibwe language and English renewed as first language in the mouths of infants. These are poems that urge women to discover the power of their own tongues as they teach speech - the sweet, salty, sour and bitter desires - the taste on the mother's tongue.

Table of Contents

The Ordinary Shape of Rooms

The Ordinary Shape of Rooms

Asylum in the Grasslands Buffalo Medicine

If I were to tell a story Boarding School for Indian Women Meatloaf Asylum in the Grasslands

He Opens and Closes the Store Fodder Returning on an Oklahoma Backroad Late at Night with 139,000 Miles on my Car

The Relief of America Christopher Buffalo Jump, Blue Mounds, Minnesota Oklahoma Land Run Giving the Air Away Cinnamon Bear, Field Museum, Chicago

The Shadow's Horse Tuning Story The Stockyard Series: Remuda Crow Standing Rez

They Handed Out Bible Verses Like Oars Driving Words look for a place to belong Stones for a Pillow

The Ladder The Swimmer A Cab Nowhere To Be Seen Leonard de Vinci's Monna Lisa dite La Joconde

The Stones for a Pillow Lone Dog's Winter Count Hamatawk Lone Dog's Winter Count Portrait of the Artist as Indian

Here I Am Standing Beside Myself Homework Truck Stop on Highway 80 near Walcott, Iowa Portrait of the Lone Survivor Kemo Sabe

The First Reader, Santee Training School, 1873 Coyote's Quodlibet Coyote's Shyness Coyote Meets the Bird Maker Coyote thinks of story as a living being Coyote's Skyness Coyote's Vision (Ado)ration

You know the Indian Homage Buffalo Trip You know them by their stealing

The light of (ado)ration Well you push your mind along the road Air for Flute Stop Waves in the Fold of the Lake (Ado)ration

Theology of Deer One Age in a Dream If Words Were Shapen in the Animal Head Squirrels Bride

Means Cook Pasture for Rent Iron Woman Without Title Iron Woman Aunt Fannie Fixes Bison Bourguignon

I Am Not the Woman I Am Totem First Lieutenant Marine Plague Boom Town

The Rain Stealer A Share of the Stair (or As I'm Talking I'm Becoming What I Say)

Grand Portage Casino Slipping into what will hold onto Kissing the Sun Wyoming

A condensation during flight Offering Great Great Grandmother Steps into the Room

Reservation Solar Eclipse The Spirit Blesses You w/ Hardship Some Thoughts on Our Uncommon Language

Photo Frames #1-10, Kansas City Stockyards (Or How to be Indian) Rooms House Rooms

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Parade of Old Loves Every night a different one returns: his hair loopy curls or shorn to velvet or in lanks or shiny bald, he comes to me real as ever. And I am utterly convinced each one is the one who put this baby in me. I take it as a retrospective show: How things might have been - This one's flat black eyes on me again and me the same woman I was once - as cold as he was hard. I'm only waiting now to dream the one I was all earth and warm for, the one I lost with my belief. I'll take this as my chance to retrieve each part of me I loaned. Come on guys, sure I'll say the baby's yours, I'll make it bouncy, shining, golden just for you - if only you bring it back, bring it all back, so when I give this time, my gift is whole.