Gerald Vizenor

Gerald Vizenor
b. 1934
http://www.geraldvizenor.com
Laura Hall
Gerald Vizenor is of Anishinabe heritage and an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa
Tribe, White Earth Reservation. Vizenor was born in Minnesota, but before he turned two
years old his father was murdered. He was subsequently raised by his Swedish American
mother, Anishinabe grandmother, and extended family in Minneapolis and on the White Earth
Reservation.
The author of more than 20 books of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, Vizenor attended college
on the GI Bill after serving in the armed forces for three years, mostly in Japan. He studied at
New York University and did postgraduate work at Harvard University and the University of
Minnesota. From 1964 to 1968 he directed the American Indian Employment and Guidance
Center in Minneapolis. He was also a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune, where he
investigated the actions of American Indian activists.
Vizenors poetry collections include The Old Park Sleeper (1961), Empty Swings (1967),
Matsushima: Pine Islands collected haiku (1984), Summer in the Spring: Anishinaabe Lyrics
Poems and Stories (1993), Raising the Moon Vines (1999), Cranes Arise (1999), Bear Island:
The War at Sugar Point (2006), a narrative poem, and Almost Ashore: Selected Poems (2006).
Vizenor has employed the haiku form in his highly imagistic poetry, an influence from his
years in Japan. A review in the Utne Reader remarked: The Japanese verse form flows
together with trickster stories and Native dream songs in Vizenors literary canon of surprise
and delight. Kimberly M. Blaeser, writing in SAIL (Studies in American Indian Literatures),
commented on Vizenors ability to blend his Native American background with the haiku
form, adding: Vizenors voice and poetic vision have always reflected the dynamic reality of
Anishinaabe experience, contemporary and historical. His poetry, like his prose, issues at
once lament, loud laughter, biting criticism, natural wisdom, and spiritual insight. He is,
within his poetry, at once ironist, trickster, word warrior, and tribal dreamer.
A writer whose oeuvre has avoided simple categorization, Vizenor drew on Native American
trickster stories to contribute to his science fiction novel Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles
(1990). His other novels include Griever: An American Monkey King in China (1990), which
won the New York Fiction Collective Prize and the American Book Award from the Before
Columbus Foundation; The Heirs of Columbus (1991); and Hiroshima Bugi (2003). Vizenors
nonfiction works have also garnered awards. His Interior Landscapes: Autobiographical
Myths and Metaphors (1990) won the PEN OaklandJosephine Miles Award for Excellence
in Literature, which was also awarded to his anthology Native American Literature (1996).
Among his honors, Vizenor has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native
Writers Circle of the Americas and a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western
Literature Association. He has taught at Lake Forest College, in Illinois; the University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis; Tianjin University, in China; and the University of Oklahoma. He is
professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and a professor of American
studies at the University of New Mexico.
Almost Ashore
By Gerald Vizenor
winter sea
over my shoes
shadows
and bright
round stones
at san gregorio
every wave
turns a season
forests adrift
empty shells
memory of fire
so faraway
in the mountains
and canyons
silent pools
raise my faces
by early tide
slight my hand
shoulders
almost ashore
light breaks
over the plovers
certain steps
my traces
blood, bone, stone
turn natural
and heavy waves
rush the sand
Guthrie Theater
By Gerald Vizenor
american indian
outside the guthrie
forever wounded
by tributes
high western
movie mockery
decorations
invented names
trade beads
federal contracts
limps past
the new theater
wounded indian
comes to attention
on a plastic leg
and delivers
a smart salute
with the wrong hand
precious children
muster nearby
theatrical poses
under purple
tapestries
castles
and barricades
on stage
with reservation plans
native overscreams
rehearsed
on stage
at sand creek
blaze of bodies
at mystic river
frozen ghost dancers
chased to death
by the seventh cavalry
at wounded knee
culture wars
wound the heart
and dishonor
the uniform
forsaken warriors
retire overnight
in cardboard suites
under the interstates
american indian
decorated for bravery
invented names
salutes the actors
with the wrong hand
at the guthrie
treaties break
behind the scenes
night after night
the actors
new posers
mount and ride
on perfect ponies
out to the wild
cultural westerns
hilly suburbs
with buffalo bill
North Dakota
By Gerald Vizenor
east
the whole moon

burns behind jamestown
seven wings of geese
light the thin ice
west
the asian sun
bloody on the interstate
spring flowers
break on the gray prairie
exit
fingerprints
on the rearview mirror
feral shadows
transposed near fargo
Tyranny of Moths
By Gerald Vizenor
feathery moths
flutter on the screen
unbearable
sounds of summer
oblivious tonight
that my reading light
is not my day
stout bodies
cut and bounce
near a crack
in the screen
and beat inside
a paper shade
sacraments
of a monumental
natural presence
we are drawn
forever
by the moths
to other lights
neighbors
down the road

Gerald Vizenor

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Gerald Vizenor

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Gerald Vizenor

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What are some of Gerald Vizenor's notable poetry collections?

What awards has Gerald Vizenor received for his nonfiction works?

Gerald Vizenor

the whole moon

You might also like