Evidence of Red: Poems and Prose (Earthworks) - Tapa blanda

Acerca del autor

LeAnne Howe, an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is an author, playwright, filmmaker and scholar. Born and educated in Oklahoma, she’s lectured in Japan, Jordan, Romania, and Spain. Shell Shaker, Howe’s first novel, received an American Book Award in 2002 from the Before Columbus Foundation. In 2003, she was named Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year, 2002, Creative Prose. Equinoxes Rouge, the French translation for Shell Shaker is the 2004 finalist for the Prix Medici Etranger, one of France’s top literary awards. Currently she is assistant professor in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. In September 2005, she will be an associate professor in the Departments of English, and American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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Evidence of Red

First, night opened out.

Bodies took root from rotting salt

and seawater into evidence of red life.

Relentless waves pumped tidal air

into a single heartbeat.

In the pulp of shadow and space,

water sucked our people from sleep.

That’s how it all began. At least

that’s all we can remember to tell.

It began with water and heartbeat.

In minutes we tunneled through

corn woman’s navel into tinges

of moist red men and women.

Yawning, we collected our chins,

knees, breasts, and sure-footed determination.

A few thousand years before

Moses parted the Red Sea, and the

God with three heads was born in the Middle East,

the Choctaw people danced

our homeland infra red.

Finally when the stranger’s arms

reached to strangle the West,

Grandmother eavesdropped

on the three-faced deity

who said that chaos was coming.

When he turned his lips and tried to kiss her

she made it rain on him.

“Maybe you’ve forgotten

you were born of water and women,”

she said, walking away laughing.