Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Between Towns by Laurie Kutchins

1994; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 28; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wal.1994.0111

1948-7142

Elizabeth A. Blair,

Latin American and Latino Studies

Reviews 373 SaaniiDahataal: The WomenAreSinging. ByLuci Tapahonso. (Tucson: University ofArizona Press, 1993. 95 pages, $19.95/$9.95.) In Luci Tapahonso’s latest book of poems and prose you’ll encounter the exquisite splendor of the spoken word and the real beauty of simplicity. Her small stories, details of home, and genuine words of everyday living all illumi­ nate the Navajo wayof life. This book begins with a preface that explains Tapahonso’s traditional upbringing in Shiprock, New Mexico, her nostalgia for home while living in Kansas, and reunions with her family. She also writes about the challenge of translating Navajo ideas and thoughts into English. Her own storytelling style flows in a compelling cycle ofstories and poems that gives us awarm picture of her family and their history. Like so many snapshots from a treasured photo album, we see distinct places, people, and events: the Yeibicheii dancers, a weekend goodbye, family trips to the store, Navajo cowboys, Tapahonso braid­ ing her daughter’s hair, the death of her brothers and their legacy to her, an uncle drinking coffee, adventures of the family dogs, and so on. Perhaps the strongest stories mix historywith present-day occurrences. For example, “In 1864”tells the storyofa man who leaves hisjob near Fort Sumner because he hears the nightlywailing ofhis ancestors, who, in 1864, were forced towalkfrom their homeland to the fort, in an abhorrent attempt at assimilation by the government. Thousands died and the survivors were allowed to return home four years later. The book closes with an eloquent prose piece titled “Who I Am.”It begins in 1935 with the death ofTapahonso’sgreat-grandmotherwhile waitingfor her son, Prettyboy, throughout awinter’snight. It continueswith that uncle’sdeath in 1968. Her mother’svoice isher memory. Then itis 1987 and Tapahonso ison her wayto France. There, missing her family and confronted with the curiosity of“being a ‘real’Indian,”she prayswith an offering ofcorn pollen: “Itwaswhile I stood on top ofthe EiffelTower that Iunderstood thatwho I am ismymother, her mother, and mygreat-grandmother, Kinjichii’nii Bitsi.” Tapahonso’ssubtle styleand the message she delivers on the importance of family and heritage speak to the heart of the human race. ANDREA-BESS BAXTER Albuquerque, New Mexico Between Towns. By Laurie Kutchins. (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1993. 96 pages, $16.50.) Laurie Kutchins’first book of poems, Between Towns, delivers on the rich verbal promise ofits bookjacket—no small feat given the provocative nature of 374 Western American Literature Miriam Garcia’spainting, 'Womanin theClouds. Risingoutofan inkyforeground, a small light-roofed house and solitarywindmill catch the glow from a sky that refuses to distinguish between clouds, hills, and the rolling curves ofa reclining female body. In Between Towns, Kutchins takes as her subject the inseparability between land and self, lightand loneliness, space and spiritthat is the subjectof the painting aswell as the legacy of the western landscape. Unlike many young poets, Kutchins is neither self-absorbed nor sex-obsessed . Her quest isfor something more elemental than individualityor fleeting sexual union. In “Still Lifewith Hawks and Storms,”Kutchins tells us she would “like to be one with the impalpable circle ofthe unconscious.”Seeking connec­ tions between herself and entities as various as rocks, ticks, trees, wind, and coyotes, the poet explores the land that isthe bodyand the body that isthe land, recognizing—and rejoicing in—her own insignificance. Of the hawks, she writes: “Beneath their voracious shadows, I was a random form,/an uncamouflaged lump,/a mere whistle in their chain ofbeing./I was the least of their concerns.” But Kutchins also recognizes her power, which “comes from opening my thighs,/letting the moon migrate through my body, seed my blood.”In receiv­ ing the moon, she renews the human connection, “giving birth to my mother.” In “Watching Great Grandma Bean Undress,”Kutchins observes “she and her daughter and her daughter/and her daughter who is me/lingering in this one body.”And as she meditates on the similaritybetween her bones and the bones of her father, she asks: “What might I be then, when the glacial slice/ofhis life has long since left me?” Kutchins writes like the girl in the screened gazebo in “Alchemy” paints, “her lips...