Happy Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by Linda Baie at her blog, Teacher Dance. Thank you, Linda, for hosting! She has a ghoulish poem waiting.
I wasn’t sure what to share this week. I’ve been revising old work this week, so haven’t written a poem, at least not one that’s ready for my blog.
But this summer I was paging through my Norton Anthology of American Literature and discovered Gertrude Simmons Bonnin’s “Impressions of an Indian Childhood.” I had never heard of her. A citizen of the Yankton Sioux Nation, Zitkala-Ša was an activist who believed she could be both an American Citizen as well as a citizen of the Yankton Sioux (or Dakota) Nation.
Zitkala-Ša was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in 1938. She was eligible for burial there because her husband, Raymond, fought in WW l. He joined her later. On her tombstone is inscribed “Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Zitkala-Ša, of the Sioux’ 1876-1938.” On the reverse, a plains-style tepee is engraved, making it a symbol of both the United States and the Yankton Sioux Nation.
To learn more about her, I recommend an article entitled “Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Zitkala-Ša: Advocate for the “Indian vote”, by Cathleen D. Cahill.
Reading her detailed writing about her childhood gave me a glimpse of what daily life was like then. Of course, there was much heartbreak and loss in her writing, about stolen land, murders of close relatives by white Americans and more.
But there was childhood play, too, in her work. In “Impressions of an Indian Childhood” she describes something universal to childhood, trying to outsmart her shadow. I found her writing charming and sweetly evocative of when I was seven or eight years-old.
Zitkala-Ša writes: "Faster and faster I ran, setting my teeth and clenching my fists, determined to overtake my own fleet shadow. But ever swifter it slides before me, while I was growing breathless and hot. Slackening my speed, I was greatly vexed that my shadow would check its pace also. Daring it to the utmost, as I thought, I sat down upon a rock imbedded in the hillside. So! my shadow had the impudence to sit down beside me!
MY TRICKSTER FRIEND (A poem inspired by “Impressions of Indian Childhood.”by Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) This morning I walked, the sun behind me. My trickster friend walked ahead. As we danced down the street, she copied my dance moves, leading the way. When I turned to come home, she disappeared. But soon she was there again! Sitting on my front steps sharing my ice cream. © Janice Scully 2021, Draft.
On a different note, Happy Halloween! It’s almost here and thank you, Linda, for hosting.