Notebooks of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

by Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth

• ISBN13: 9780816525836
• ISBN10: 0816525838
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-02-23
• Publisher: Univ of Arizona Pr

Summary

An eclectic collection of poetry, prose, and politics, Notebooks of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is a text, a narrative, a song, a story, a history, a testimony, a witnessing. Above all, it is a fiercely intelligent, brave, and sobering work that re-examines and interrogates our nation's past and the distorted way that its history has been written. In topics including recent debates over issues of environmental justice, the contradictions surrounding the Crazy Horse Monument, and the contemporary portrayal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition as one of the great American epic odysseys, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn stitches together a patchwork of observations of racially charged cultural materials, personal experiences, and contemporary characterizations of this country's history and social climate. Through each example, she challenges the status quo and piques the reader's awareness of persistent abuses of indigenous communities. The voices that Cook-Lynn brings to the texts are as varied as the genres in which she writes. They are astute and lyrical, fierce and heartbreaking. Through these intonations, she maintains a balance between her roles as a scholar and a poet, a popular teacher and a woman who has experienced deep personal loss. A unique blend of form and content that traverses time, space, and purpose, this collection is a thoroughly original contribution to modern American Indian literature. Moreover, it presents an alternative narrative of the nation's history and opens an important window into the political challenges that Natives continue to face.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn has been a visiting professor and consultant in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis, and at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
What about Art?	p. 3
When we talk of	p. 5
The Inadequacy of Literary Art	p. 17
This Story	p. 18
The Woman Who Wrote Poems	p. 19
In This	p. 20
There Is Something Off-Stage	p. 21
Written in Kindness...	p. 22
Books in Missoula	p. 23
Messages as I Pass a Car	p. 25
Hearing Spiders Pray...	p. 28
People who read my work	p. 30
Surrounded by Serbs on Rapid Creek	p. 31
Birds, Yellow Jackets, the Sun, and an Old Man	p. 33
Who Owns the Past?	p. 37
Thoughts While Driving across a Bridge on Interstate 90	p. 38
A Younger Sister, I Try to Believe in Myself	p. 39
Another Place to Walk Back From	p. 40
Who Are You, Tim McVeigh?	p. 42
June 2004	p. 47
Reading Guide to Aurelia	p. 48
The Old Couple	p. 54
Another Commencement Address	p. 55
What I Really Said...	p. 56
Omnipresence/Thunder	p. 71
A Mixed Marriage	p. 73
Writing Is a Hard Thing to Do	p. 74
A Gentle Heart	p. 76
A Poem	p. 78
When I did graduate work	p. 79
Whatever Happened to D'Arcy McNickle?	p. 80
Going Away	p. 91
When Scott Momaday	p. 92
The Riverpeople	p. 95
September 5/2004	p. 96
Irony's Blade	p. 101
Democracy in 2002 and the Free Press	p. 105
Murder at the Nebraska Line	p. 106
Change	p. 107
October 2004	p. 111
At Churchside, 1995	p. 113
Contradictions...	p. 114
A Commutative Poem about Graduate School	p. 116
Exile	p. 117
The condition	p. 120
There is the widespread notion	p. 122
In the Summer	p. 124
There are few vocations	p. 127
The Way It Is	p. 129
Colonization	p. 130
Trying to Make a Difference	p. 131
Rabbit Dance	p. 132
December Twenty-Eight	p. 133
Sitting Beside an American Woman...	p. 134
Out of the Mouths of Babes	p. 137
A Cynic Assumes the Right...	p. 141
Restless Spirit	p. 142
Culture Wars	p. 144
While Watching a Prairie Bird	p. 145
Great literary events	p. 149
Phyllis Schlafly says this	p. 150
The Sioux say	p. 151
The Morning World Is Like This	p. 152
November 19, 2005	p. 153
Must We Go to Delphi...?	p. 155
Dakota Iapi Tewahi(n)da	p. 157
There is a man	p. 158
Metaphor	p. 160
Anangoptan (Listen!)	p. 166
Make Believe	p. 168
New Myths of Feminism	p. 170
What is a feminist?	p. 171
Snowy Days and Nights	p. 177
Rejoice, Rejoice	p. 178
Below the Poverty Line	p. 179
In Defense of Politics and Ethical Criticism	p. 186
Acknowledgments	p. 191
Notes on Sources	p. 192
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