Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance Reginald Dyck Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance. By Susan Berry Brill de Ramírez and Evelina Zuni Lucero. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009. 440 pages, $27.95. This valuable anthology honors a writer who has inspired many through his personal interactions and wide range of writing. The work of Acoma Pueblo writer Simon Ortiz is illuminated in the collection's three parts: first through his autobiographical essays and interviews, then through other writers' personal responses, and finally through critical engagements. In part 1, two pictures emerge of Ortiz's early childhood and his relationship with his father, family, and community. The main picture is of an Acoma-speaking, traditional, artisan father and a story-telling family connected to the land and pueblo. The other picture, shown particularly in Evelina Zuni Lucero's interview, includes a "dysfunctional" (Ortiz's term) family, "multi-lingual" parents, a father often absent because of railroad work, and a mother singing in the Catholic Church. Here we see Ortiz's honesty and the risk-taking that others comment on. Both family portraits are important referents for his work. One wishes the editors in their interviews or commentary had brought the two descriptions to bear on one another. Many writers eagerly share their touching personal accounts in part 2. They explain how Ortiz's example and encouragement, as well as his early work, shaped them. Some comment on his political engagement. Kathryn Shanley notes the way Indian workers are valued in his writing. Susan Berry Brill de Ramirez's introduction usefully prepares us for the third, critical section. In providing six orientations (ranging from local rootedness to global indigenous engagement) for reading Ortiz's work, she grounds her general insights in historical research and specific analysis. Not all the subsequent essays follow her example. Some do, for example, Jeff Burgland's essay on key stories. With subtlety and insight that encourages us to reread these stories in new ways, Burgland addresses Ortiz's strategy for respectfully engaging privileged knowledge. In contrast, Elizabeth Ammons's essay presents easy binaries, as other essays do as well, supported by extended paraphrase. Deborah Reese constructs [End Page 293] specifically contextualized close readings of Ortiz's children's literature that reveal the significance of what is on the page. Her essay shows that Ortiz's children's books offer a distillation of his worldview and message. Lawrence Evers's carefully researched essay, reprinted with a new postscript, compares the way stories by Ortiz and Leslie Marmon Silko shape a historical event into fiction. Ortiz's fiction receives more analysis than does his poetry in this collection. In general, the critical community has responded to Native poets with interviews and overviews more than with close critical scrutiny. I find works like From Sand Creek quite challenging and had hoped for a tutorial. Even books such as Fight Back, comparatively straightforward in its narrative poetry, call for serious critical engagement. While Gary Hobson's reviews capture the excitement of first reading Ortiz's early work, more analysis of the ways Ortiz expresses his spiritual, cultural, and political commitments through his poems would have strengthened this collection. In his epilogue, Robert Warrior praises this anthology while stating that "there's so much more to say," a comment appropriate for most of our critical ventures. Nevertheless, this is a landmark work; few Native authors have received a book-length analysis, and this volume acknowledges Ortiz's stature (392). Reginald Dyck Capital University, Columbus, Ohio Copyright © 2009 Western Literature Association