Johana-Marie Williams October 19, 2010 LIT4034Gardener Oral Report: Sherman Alexie Sherman Alexie is a poet who is a part

of the Contemporary movement which is both apart of and a response to postmodernism, poetry that emphasizes culture and identity whether sexual, racial, or political. In his poetry, Alexie seeks to rearrange the readers perspective on ownerships of history and culture and reestablish his own history and culture as a Native American. Because of the nature of Imperialism (the fact that the hierarchal point of view as the conqueror as somehow intrinsically stronger/better/more worthy than those conquered is absorbed by both the "conqueror" and the "conqueree) his poems are not solely for a Native American audience, nor Caucasian audience-- not only for the privileged or only for the unprivileged. It is both that need to re-member and re-assess history and culture by re-cognizing (not just seeing but rethinking) what has actually happened in the past and what the consequences of the past are today. Some of the issues addressed are invisibility, economic in, appropriation of culture, To Read: Textbook pg. 1045-1052 Attached Documents: o Another Proclamation o Giving Blood o An Interview with Sherman Alexie

MY NOTES Approach The questions asked in his poetry often boil down to, What really happened then? and Whats really going on today? Because America is not postcolonial. Just cause the white people across the pond left the white people over here alone doesnt meant that colonialism is not still happening (the remaining areas of Western colonization being Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the Americas) and for the minorities in those areas that have not reached the postcolonial stage, colonialism and its effects on everyday life are going to constantly be an issue. Im definitely going to be looking more at the ideas of Alexeis poetry than his technique. This is not a poetry craft class, its a literary class, and the point of literature is to convey an idea, appoint, an idea etc., so our focus as students should be on the ideas that are being conveyed and discuss them. Not only that but often when minorities write poetry that is very frank about their ideas, the discussion of a poets technique is often used to so as not to discuss the more inflammatory aspects of the writing. I do not think that this is completely conscious or purposeful, especially on the part of the student and it is even understandable since the topics may not be as easily relatable to a reading audience that is majority white but Im not going to do that. That is not to say that technique is unimportant. Actually technique frequently is a vehicle for of the poets idea and an examination of such adds depth to the discussion what a poet is or is not trying to say. But the discussion of technique should be in the context of the discussion of the poets message. Conversation 1. Another Proclamation a. Rethinking a historical figure often set up as a hero against injustice (differences/similarities to June Jordans Notes on the Peanut though from a different perspective)

2. How to Write the Great American Novel and Evolution a. Reappropriation i. for profit ii. as a part of Americas melting pot identity b. Highlighting stereotypes=victimization of the Indian figure in art (film, lit, etc.) c. Familiar (romanticized) imagery from a receiving/opposing perspective 3. Giving Blood a. The ethics of selling the body allow others to benefit from Crazy Horses previous involuntary sacrifice but when he needs to sell his own resources for his own gain allowing him to do so would be wrong. (Chris Rock, government, wealth, and the war on drugs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0V0Et2owbI) 4. Tone & Structure: accomplishing Larkins pleasure principle? (discuss)
a.

http://www.mrbauld.com/larkinpl.html And in any case nobody nowadays believes that a worthwhile

artist can rely on anything but his own judgement: public taste is always twenty-five years behind, and picks up a style only when it is exploited by the second-rate. All this is true enough. But at bottom poetry, like all art, is inextricably bound up with giving pleasure, and if a poet loses his pleasure-seeking audience he has lost the only audience worth having, for which the dutiful mob that signs on every September is no substitute. And the effect will be felt throughout his work. He will forget that even if he finds what he has to say interesting, others may not. He will concentrate on moral worth, or semantic intricacy. Worst of all, his poems will no longer be born of the tension between what he non-verbally feels and what can be got over in common word-usage to someone who hasn't had his experience or education or travel grant, and once the other end of the rope is dropped what results will not be so much obscure or piffling (though it may be both) as an unrealized, 'undramatized' slackness, because he will have lost the habit of testing what he writes by this particular standard. Hence, no pleasure. Hence, no poetry.