DOCUMENT RESUME ED 277 519 RC 016 047 AUTHOR Harjo, Joy; And Others TITLE The Creative Process. PUB DATE 85 NOTE 16p. PUB TYPE Viewpoints (120) -- Creative Works (Literature,Drama,Fine Arts) (030) -- Journal Articles (080) JOURNAL CIT Wicazo Sa Review; vl nl p38-52 Spr 1985 EDRS PRICE mrol/pail Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS American Indian Culture; *American Indian Literature; American Indians; Literary Criticism; *Literary Devices; *Literary Styles; *Poetry; *Poets; Writing (Composition); *Writing Processes IDENTIFIERS Cook Lynn (Elizabeth); Harjo (Joy); Kenny (Maurice); Ortiz (Simon J) ABSTRACT Four Native American poets in easy narrative style tell about some of the aesthetic judgments they make in their work and, in the processshed some light upon the traditions from which their poetry emerges. Joy Harjo discusses how she wrote "The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window," her use of repetition influenced by =lac and preaching, and her vision of Indian women who inspired the poem. Maurice Kenny describes the illness which evoked associations for the poem "Wild Strawberry" and the significance of the strawberry for the Iroquois people. Simon J. Ortiz relates the conversation which inspired his political poem, "That's the Place Indians Talk About," the revision process used to rework the poem, and the narrative technique chosen for this work. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn comments on her poem, "Survival." Texts of all four poems are included. (NEC) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** THE CREATIVE PROCESS a To the readers of modern poetry, She sees Take Mkhigan lapping at the shorm of Amerindian works have pined signifi- herself. It is a dizzy hole of water and the ncli cant recognition in the last decade or so. live in tali glass houses a the edge of it In some Some important collections like Angle of places take Mkhisan speaks softly, hae, it just sputters Geese and Gourd Dancer by N. Scott and butts itself against the asphalt. She sees Momaday and Going for the Rain by other buildings just like hen. Shc ..ees other women hanging from manytoored windows Simon 3. Ortiz hold a firm and comfor- counting their lives in the naims of their mods table place on our library shelves. In the and in the palms of their children% hands 4:1 following pages, four Native poets (Or- tiz, Kenny, Cook and Marjo) in easy nar- She b the woman hanging from the 13th floor window rative style tell us about some of the on the Indian sid: of town. Her belly is soft from aesthetic Judgments they make hi their her childien's births, her wom lois swing down below work and, and in the process, throw her waist, and then her feet, and then her heart some light upon the traditions from She is dangling. which their poetry emerges. "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS SEEN GRANTED BY The women banging ftom the 13th floor hats voices. They come to her in the night when the lights have gone dim. 4ometimes they are little cats mewing and scratching al the doot, SOMetiMes they are her grandmother's voice, and sometimes they are givntic men of light whispering The Woman to her to get up, to get up. to get up. Thes when she wants TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." to have another child to hold onto in the night, to be able Hanging from the to fail back into dreams. ti S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Orke c Eawahoral Resew* end Improvement Thirteenth Floor (DucavOnm.RESOURCES INFORMATION And the woman banging from the 1 3th floor window CENTER ERIC) hears other voices Some of them scream out from below Nem document Ass Wen reproduced so *caved from Me petson or onamosabon Window for ha to Pimp. they would push ha ova Others ay soh* °Ramona° it 0 Monor amps Nam teen mode to metes* from the sidewalks, pull their children up lik flowers and gather tecitoduchon °Imlay them into their arms. They wovld hap het, like themselves Pants °Immo/ cor Od000ns$1alidetausdocd. Published in She Had Some Horses by Joy mord do not nacassaftly represent*WAN OERI Damon et policy Harjo, Thunder's Mouth Press, NY. But she a the woman hanging from the 13th floor window, and she knows she is lunging by her own tinged, het She is the woman hanging from the 13th floor own skin, her own thread of indecision. window. Her hands are pressed white against the concrete moulding of the tenement building. She She thinks of Carlos, of Matgaret, of Jimmy. hangs from the 13th floor window in eas Chicago, She thinks of ber father, and of het mothet. with a swirl of birds over her head They could She thinks of Al the women sbe has been, of 211 be a halo, or a storm of glass waiting to crush her the men She thinks of the color of her skin, and of Chicago streets, and of waterfalls and pines She thinks she will be set free. She thinks of moonlight nighis, and of coal spring storms Her mind chatters like neon and northside bars The woman hanging ioni the 1 3th floor window She thinks of the 4 a.m. lonelinesses that have folded on the east side of Chicago is not alone. her up like death, discordant, without logical and She Is a woman of children, of the baby. Carlos. beautiful conclusion. Her teeth break off at the edges. and of Margaret, and of Jimmy who is the oldest. She would speak. She is her motha's daughter and her father'sSOft. She is several pieces berWeeil the two husbands The woman hangs from the 13th floor window crying for she has bad. She is all the women of the apartment the low beauty of her own life. She sees the budding who stand watching her. watching themselves. SIM falling %vett over the grey plane of Chicago She thinks she remembers listening to her own lik When she was young she ate wild rice on scraped down break loose, as she faffs from tbe 13th floor plates in warm wood rooms. It was in the farther window on the east side of Chicago. or as she nonte and she OraS the baby then. They rocked her. climbs back up to claim herself again. 38 2 BEST COPY MAME How dkl this poem begin? ed about the rocldng chair. that room. This poem began two years before I It SW probably one of the quicker began writing It, during a trip to Chicago poems I have written, in terms of getting to visit friends, see the King Tut exhjbit its basic structure down, the basic line of and look for other Indians. I found the it. And unusual in the sense that I kept Chicago Indian Center at nearly dusk. It feeling her there, standing behind me, could have been any other urban Indian urging me on. center, the same part of the city, a color like lost dreams, air tasting like a borrow- ed hope, and always the ragged pool \Vatchanges did you make? tables where kids acting twice their age I don't recall ail the changes I made shoot pool downhill all day. after the first draft of the poem, but there One particular image stayed with me were many. I probably wound up with for two years, and it probably wasn't ex- at least 20 pages of revision and then aody what I saw, but changed, transform- some. These days when I write it's even ed with living. And it wasn't the most more revision. To me that is much of the sIgnificant Image I remember, or it didn't art of writing, the craft of it, taking care appear to be, but something about that that the language fits, that what is meant one small room, hardly anyone in it, a is clear in terms of what is evoked in the western window with no curtains, reader, the listener, and what is spoken maybe a few toothless venetian blinds, Is said so beautifully even when speak- and a rocking chair, especially that bony ing into moments/events that I have to rocking chair with stuffing coming out painfully see. of the padding, and the sun falling behind As a poet I feel that it is my respon- a horizon of skyscrapers, triggered the sibility to ty clear and alive in my work, poem, the story in it. to not add to the confusion. What stillstrikes me about the remembering is not knowing whether What techniques did you use? "for real" anyone had been rocking in One technique I often use, and use in that rocking chair, but everytime I "The Woman Hanging from the Thir- remember it I remember a young woman teenth Floor Window" is that of repeti- nursing a baby, or an old man with a tion. For me it is a way of speaking that greasy paper sack on his leanhig back, can, if used effectively, make the poem softly breathing; or two kids rocking it lift off the page and enter into the listener hard and being warned to slow it down; much like a song or a chant. Repetition or that old woman at forty who watch- has always been used, ceremonially, in ed the sunset as receding light across the telling stories, in effective speaking, so floor; or the other one laughing at her that what is said becomes a litany, and sister's terrible jokes; or anyone I may gives you a way to enter in to what is be- have seen or not seen in that rocking ing said, and a way to emerge whole, but chair.