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An Ojibwe girl practices her dance steps, gets help from her family, and is inspired by the soaring flight of Migizi, the eagle, as she prepares for her first powwow.
Dragonfly Dance is a collection of poems remarkable for their candor and sense of catharsis. Writing from the vantage point of an American Indian women, Denise Lajimodiere opens a door into the lives of Native girls and women. Her poems often reflect the deep tensions between Native culture and white culture. Reflected in Lajimodiere's poems, life is sometimes beautiful but rarely easy. "The Necklace," the narrator details how her mother repaired a favorite beaded necklace, "her arthritic fingers patiently / threading beads / on the long thin needle, weaving / night after night." When the necklace is finally repaired, she wears it to school where At recess a White boy ran by, yanked it off my neck and threw it. I watched as it ascended high above the blacktop, the beads glittered, scattering their light, a rainbow against gray skies. Unadorned, direct, and often raw, these riveting poems sear their way into our imaginations, inviting us into a world we might never have known. We are richer for the knowledge.
At the heart of Thunderbird is a poetic treatise on the historical, cultural, medicinal, and spiritual properties of the birch tree, which Denise employs in her renowned birch bark biting art.Assembled and printed at the Braddock Letterpress Print Museum by publishing interns, each numbered, limited edition copy of Thunderbird bears an original piece of birch bark biting art.Denise is an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Belcourt, North Dakota. She is Assistant Professor in Educational Leadership at North Dakota State University. She is also a traditional Jingle Dress dancer, a poet (Dragonfly Dance [Michigan State University Press, 2010] and Bitter Tears [Mammoth Press, 2016]), and a Birch Bark Biting artist.
Denise K. Lajimodiere's newest collection of poetry takes its title from a statue the author observed-an Indian on a horse-a statue comprised of welded-together farm implements. The premise of the collection is overtly a criticism of settler society, but the poetry is subtle, approachable, and grounded in Ojibwe knowledge and customs. Feathers is divided into five sections: Broken Glass Dreams, Identity, His Feathers Were Chains, Thin White Heat, and Dancing with a Whirlwind.
Dragonfly Dance is a collection of poems remarkable for their candor and sense of catharsis. Writing from the vantage point of an American Indian woman, Denise Lajimodiere opens a door into the lives of Native girls and women. Her poems often reflect the deep tensions between Native culture and white culture. Reflected in Lajimodiere's poems, life is sometimes beautiful but rarely easy. The Necklace, the narrator details how her mother repaired a favorite beaded necklace, her arthritic fingers patiently threading beads on the long thin needle, weaving night after night. When the necklace is finally repaired, she wears it to school where, at recess a boy ran by, yanked it off her neck and threw it. I watched as it ascended high above the blacktop, the beads glittered, scattering their light, a rainbow against gray skies. Unadorned, direct, and often raw, these riveting poems sear their way into our imaginations, inviting us into a world we might never have known. We are richer for the knowledge.
"In Bitter Tears, Denise Lajimodiere's poetry creates a tapestry of elegies about United States Indigienous boarding school experiences. She restores histories of Ojibwas survivors, people who endured some of the darkest hours of American history. The verse informs; it distills tragedy into healing songs; it uplifts" -- Page 4 of cover.
Denise K. Lajimodiere's interest in American Indian boarding school survivors' stories evolved from recording her father and other family members speaking of their experiences. Her research helped her gain insight, a deeper understanding of her parents, and how and why she and her siblings were parented in the way they were. That insight led her to an emotional ceremony of forgiveness, described in the last chapter of Stringing Rosaries. The journey to record survivors' stories led her through the Dakotas and Minnesota and into the personal and private space of boarding school survivors. While there, she heard stories that they had never shared before. She came to an understanding of new ter...
A modern lighthouse keeper tells the fascinating stories of his tenure at a celebrated historic site.
The rural, Lao-speaking people of northeastern Thailand constitute over a third of the entire population of Thailand. Over the last century, this ethnically separate community has evolved from a traditional peasantry into “cosmopolitan” villagers who are actively shaping Thai politics. Eminent anthropologist Charles Keyes traces this evolution in detail, beginning with the failure of a Buddhist millenarian uprising in 1901–2 and concluding with the successful election of the Thai Rak Thai/Pheu Thai Party in the 2000s. In the intervening century, rural northeasterners have become more educated and prosperous, and they have gained a sophisticated understanding of the world and of their p...
This book is about the use of exoticism, particularly the use of masks and stylized movement, in opera and other musical theater genres of the twentieth century. The author explores in depth a topic that effects a wide variety of important composers, dancers, and dramatists, but has never been comprehensively studied.