I’m taking one class this semester – focusing on Urban Indigenous Identity. It’s truly interesting class, where I am constantly forced to evaluate how I think about what First Nation is, and how land, language and community play into my identity as a First Nation woman.
City Treaty: A Long Poem had several interesting statements or lines that I felt were relevant to the current discussion of what Urban Indian is, although it was hard to follow the first time I read through. I found that I had to “let go” of my ideas of what should be in a poem, and allow myself to experience the poem as it was. And it was a long story, with several different stories spanned into one long form, much like an oral narrative, which was appealing. I read out loud, and that made it easier to connect with, to hear the rhythms and natural oral voice emerge.
With lines such as “there are 25 street smiles you better learn when you / sell your body” (25) and “the electric indian rides tall / john ford john doe run johnny run” (39), this collection breaks down stereotypical native imagery and talks about the struggles that Indigenous women face – especially relevant as we just finished talking about Missing Sarah: A Memoir of Loss, a non-fiction work written by the sister of a women whose DNA was found on the Pickton farm. This book rejects traditional forms of poetry books – there are no neatly ordered poems per page, and barely any indicators that you have moved on from one poem to another aside from a bold title here and there. Francis takes on Treaties to Government to Shakespeare to the indulgence of Fast Food to stereotypes – nothing is safe, nothing is sacred, and perhaps that in itself is a statement – as nothing in our cultures seems to be sacred or off-limits to the general population. There is very little said on the topic of land, and how that plays into urban identity, if at all, in this book. Is the lack of land in itself a statement as well – that land is forever changing and that he and his writings do not exist in government-given borders, or that land is a structure that does not define culture? That his identity is not focused on land, but rather story, language and community? I do not know the answer, but it it something to think about.
In her essay, What’s the Trouble with the Trickster: An Introduction, Dr. Kristina Fagan revisits an older essay where she introduces the Trickster Figure and how it has been perceived by Indigenous and non-indigenous writers since the 1990’s-ish. It’s interesting to see that the original name and structure of the Trickster was at first embraced and then rejected by Indigenous writers – embraced as a figure head then pushed against as a “figurehead” of what Indian Writing is – and how the Trickster figure has now been written about through Indigenous Nationalism Literary movements – being specific to the culture of where the story comes from and how that effects the tellings and lessons and behaviour of the Trickster figure, turning away from a Pan-Indianism ideal of what Tricksters should do, or behave as. It’s a great refresher to see how the discussion of Trickster was formed, to have an introduction to current discussions in the book, and to toy with the idea of what the next phase of Indigenous writings will be, and how the Trickster will play into it.
Overall, I did enjoy this writings and am looking forward to the class discussion later today.
Books:
City Treaty: A Long Poem by Marvin Francis
Troubling Tricksters: Revisiting Critical Conversations, Eds. Deanne Reder and Linda M. Morra
