University of Arizona Press, 2007 eISBN: 978-0-8165-5002-9 | Paper: 978-0-8165-2583-6 Library of Congress Classification PS3553.O5548N67 2007 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.54
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
An eclectic collection of poetry, prose, and politics, Notebooks of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is a text, a narrative, a song, a story, a history, a testimony, a witnessing. Above all, it is a fiercely intelligent, brave, and sobering work that re-examines and interrogates our nation’s past and the distorted way that its history has been written. In topics including recent debates over issues of environmental justice, the contradictions surrounding the Crazy Horse Monument, and the contemporary portrayal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition as one of the great American epic odysseys, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn stitches together a patchwork of observations of racially charged cultural materials, personal experiences, and contemporary characterizations of this country’s history and social climate.
Through each example, she challenges the status quo and piques the reader’s awareness of persistent abuses of indigenous communities. The voices that Cook-Lynn brings to the texts are as varied as the genres in which she writes. They are astute and lyrical, fierce and heartbreaking. Through these intonations, she maintains a balance between her roles as a scholar and a poet, a popular teacher and a woman who has experienced deep personal loss.
A unique blend of form and content that traverses time, space, and purpose, this collection is a thoroughly original contribution to modern American Indian literature. Moreover, it presents an alternative narrative of the nation’s history and opens an important window into the political challenges that Natives continue to face.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, Fort Thompson, and lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Since her retirement from Eastern Washington University, she has been a visiting professor and consultant in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis, and at Arizona State University in Tempe, and a writer-in-residence at several universities.
REVIEWS
“This collection is at times lyrical and sharp, fierce and heartbreaking. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is a powerful and very important voice not just in Native writing or the writing of people of color but in American writing. A strong, radical voice speaking out honestly.” —Lisa D. Chávez, author of In an Angry Season
“Cook-Lynn is a Native American truthteller who defends her imaginative and physical territory with intensity, heart,and integrity. Notebooks of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn brings us closer to the inner life of this important artist and social critic.” —Gregory L. Morris, author of Talking Up a Storm: Voices of the New West
“An absolute gem! In addition to probing aspects of her professional and personal life, Cook-Lynn tackles such complex issues facing Indian peoples today as genocide, racism, sovereignty, colonialism, and empowerment. It is a must-read for anyone who cares about Indians and American Indian studies.” —James Riding In, Arizona State University
— -
TABLE OF CONTENTS
[FMT]Contents[\]
Preface 000
Acknowledgments 000
I
What about ART? 000
When we talk of 000
The Inadequacy of Literary Art 000
This Story 000
The Woman Who Wrote Poems 000
In This 000
There Is Something Off-Stage 000
Written in Kindness . . . 000
Books in Missoula 000
Messages as I Pass a Car 000
Hearing Spiders Pray . . . 000
People who read my work 000
Surrounded by Serbs on Rapid Creek 000
Birds, Yellow Jackets, the Sun, and an Old Man 000
II
Who Owns the Past? 000
Thoughts While Driving across a Bridge on Interstate 90 000
A Younger Sister, I Try to Believe in Myself 000
Another Place to Walk Back From 000
Who Are You, Tim McVeigh? 000
III
June 2004 000
Reading Guide to Aurelia 000
The Old Couple 000
Another Commencement Address 000
What I Really Said . . . 000
IV
Omnipresence/Thunder 000
A Mixed Marriage 000
Writing Is a Hard Thing to Do 000
A Gentle Heart 000
A Poem 000
When I did graduate work 000
Whatever Happened to D'Arcy McNickle? 000
Going Away 000
When Scott Momaday 000
V
The Riverpeople 000
September 5/2004 000
Irony's Blade 000
Democracy in 2002 and the Free Press 000
Murder at the Nebraska Line 000
Change 000
October 2004 000
At Churchside, 1995 000
Contradictions . . . 000
A Commutative Poem about Graduate School 000
Exile 000
The condition 000
There is the widespread notion 000
In the Summer 000
VI
There are few vocations 000
The Way It Is 000
Colonization 000
Trying to Make a Difference 000
Rabbit Dance 000
December Twenty-Eight 000
Sitting Beside an American Woman . . . 000
Out of the Mouths of Babes 000
A Cynic Assumes the Right . . . 000
Restless Spirit 000
Culture Wars 000
While Watching a Prairie Bird 000
VII
Great literary events 000
Phyllis Schlafly says this 000
The Sioux say 000
The Morning World Is Like This 000
November 19, 2005 000
Must We Go to Delphi . . . ? 000
Dakota Iapi Tewahinda 000
There is a man 000
Metaphor 000
Anangoptan (Listen!) 000
Make Believe 000
New Myths of Feminism 000
What is a feminist? 000
Snowy Days and Nights 000
Rejoice, Rejoice 000
Below the Poverty Line 000
In Defense of Politics and Ethical Criticism 000
Notes on Sources 000
University of Arizona Press, 2007 eISBN: 978-0-8165-5002-9 Paper: 978-0-8165-2583-6
An eclectic collection of poetry, prose, and politics, Notebooks of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is a text, a narrative, a song, a story, a history, a testimony, a witnessing. Above all, it is a fiercely intelligent, brave, and sobering work that re-examines and interrogates our nation’s past and the distorted way that its history has been written. In topics including recent debates over issues of environmental justice, the contradictions surrounding the Crazy Horse Monument, and the contemporary portrayal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition as one of the great American epic odysseys, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn stitches together a patchwork of observations of racially charged cultural materials, personal experiences, and contemporary characterizations of this country’s history and social climate.
Through each example, she challenges the status quo and piques the reader’s awareness of persistent abuses of indigenous communities. The voices that Cook-Lynn brings to the texts are as varied as the genres in which she writes. They are astute and lyrical, fierce and heartbreaking. Through these intonations, she maintains a balance between her roles as a scholar and a poet, a popular teacher and a woman who has experienced deep personal loss.
A unique blend of form and content that traverses time, space, and purpose, this collection is a thoroughly original contribution to modern American Indian literature. Moreover, it presents an alternative narrative of the nation’s history and opens an important window into the political challenges that Natives continue to face.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, Fort Thompson, and lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Since her retirement from Eastern Washington University, she has been a visiting professor and consultant in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis, and at Arizona State University in Tempe, and a writer-in-residence at several universities.
REVIEWS
“This collection is at times lyrical and sharp, fierce and heartbreaking. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is a powerful and very important voice not just in Native writing or the writing of people of color but in American writing. A strong, radical voice speaking out honestly.” —Lisa D. Chávez, author of In an Angry Season
“Cook-Lynn is a Native American truthteller who defends her imaginative and physical territory with intensity, heart,and integrity. Notebooks of Elizabeth Cook-Lynn brings us closer to the inner life of this important artist and social critic.” —Gregory L. Morris, author of Talking Up a Storm: Voices of the New West
“An absolute gem! In addition to probing aspects of her professional and personal life, Cook-Lynn tackles such complex issues facing Indian peoples today as genocide, racism, sovereignty, colonialism, and empowerment. It is a must-read for anyone who cares about Indians and American Indian studies.” —James Riding In, Arizona State University
— -
TABLE OF CONTENTS
[FMT]Contents[\]
Preface 000
Acknowledgments 000
I
What about ART? 000
When we talk of 000
The Inadequacy of Literary Art 000
This Story 000
The Woman Who Wrote Poems 000
In This 000
There Is Something Off-Stage 000
Written in Kindness . . . 000
Books in Missoula 000
Messages as I Pass a Car 000
Hearing Spiders Pray . . . 000
People who read my work 000
Surrounded by Serbs on Rapid Creek 000
Birds, Yellow Jackets, the Sun, and an Old Man 000
II
Who Owns the Past? 000
Thoughts While Driving across a Bridge on Interstate 90 000
A Younger Sister, I Try to Believe in Myself 000
Another Place to Walk Back From 000
Who Are You, Tim McVeigh? 000
III
June 2004 000
Reading Guide to Aurelia 000
The Old Couple 000
Another Commencement Address 000
What I Really Said . . . 000
IV
Omnipresence/Thunder 000
A Mixed Marriage 000
Writing Is a Hard Thing to Do 000
A Gentle Heart 000
A Poem 000
When I did graduate work 000
Whatever Happened to D'Arcy McNickle? 000
Going Away 000
When Scott Momaday 000
V
The Riverpeople 000
September 5/2004 000
Irony's Blade 000
Democracy in 2002 and the Free Press 000
Murder at the Nebraska Line 000
Change 000
October 2004 000
At Churchside, 1995 000
Contradictions . . . 000
A Commutative Poem about Graduate School 000
Exile 000
The condition 000
There is the widespread notion 000
In the Summer 000
VI
There are few vocations 000
The Way It Is 000
Colonization 000
Trying to Make a Difference 000
Rabbit Dance 000
December Twenty-Eight 000
Sitting Beside an American Woman . . . 000
Out of the Mouths of Babes 000
A Cynic Assumes the Right . . . 000
Restless Spirit 000
Culture Wars 000
While Watching a Prairie Bird 000
VII
Great literary events 000
Phyllis Schlafly says this 000
The Sioux say 000
The Morning World Is Like This 000
November 19, 2005 000
Must We Go to Delphi . . . ? 000
Dakota Iapi Tewahinda 000
There is a man 000
Metaphor 000
Anangoptan (Listen!) 000
Make Believe 000
New Myths of Feminism 000
What is a feminist? 000
Snowy Days and Nights 000
Rejoice, Rejoice 000
Below the Poverty Line 000
In Defense of Politics and Ethical Criticism 000
Notes on Sources 000
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC