<![CDATA[j. todd hawkins

<![CDATA[j. todd hawkins - Home]]>Mon, 20 Nov 2023 02:32:34 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Happy International Women's Day!]]>Mon, 08 Mar 2021 18:42:10 GMThttp://jtoddhawkins.com/home/happy-international-womens-dayHonoring Kitty Wells, Trailblazer

March 8 is International Women's Day, a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. Today, I'd like to focus on one pioneering woman in particular—country music trailblazer Kitty Wells.

Wells (August 30, 1919–July 16, 2012) was born Ellen Muriel Deason in Nashville. Her 1952 breakthrough hit "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" propelled her to superstardom and shattered the glass ceiling for female country & western performers. With this hit, she became the the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts. She went on to become the only artist to be awarded top female vocalist awards for fourteen consecutive years; the sixth most successful female vocalist in the history of the Billboard country charts; the third country music artist and the eighth woman to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; and a 1976 inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In light of all this acclaim, it may be easy to forget that Wells's stardom was built on a very controversial foundation. "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" was a direct rebuttal to Hank Thompson's "The Wild Side of Life." Thompson's song describes a bride-to-be who abandoned the singer, unable to resist the life of a barfly. The woman he describes is a loose temptress who "waits to be anybody's baby." She's incapable of emotional attachment and "lured" to the wild side of life where the "wine and liquor flow." Country music historian Paul Kingsbury wrote that the song, also released in 1952, appealed to a wide audience who "thought the world was going to hell and that faithless women deserved a good deal of the blame."

Wells wasn't having it. Her answer was to record "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," a direct response written by Cajun, country, & blues musician/producer/writer Jay D. Miller. In the song, she sang that unfaithful men are the ones who create unfaithful women, not the other way around. Coming ten years before the women's liberation movement, it can't be stressed enough how unconventional this message was, especially in the male-dominated field of country music. Wells's song was banned by the Grand Ole Opry. NBC radio networks also banned it for being "suggestive." Nonetheless, the cut carried a message fans fell in love with. By the summer of 1952, the song had became the first single by a female singer to reach number one in the eight-year history of the country music chart, and it stayed there for six weeks. As a result of Wells's success, the Grand Ole Opry could no longer afford to ignore her, eventually offering her a membership.

Wells's work paved the way for Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, and Tammy Wynette. For "Harper Valley P.T.A.," "Fancy," and "The Pill." Below is my poem honoring Wells and her legacy. It's a cento composed entirely of lyrics from songs she recorded. First published in Poets Reading the News, the poem "When You Let Him in the Room," was later reprinted in my Lubbe-award winning book This Geography of Thorns.

When You Let Him in the Room
by J. Todd Hawkins
cento after K. Wells

I.
Surely there’s a place to rest
a tortured mind.
Since sundown
I’ve been walking with these blues:
the blue of your eyes,
a well with no water.

II.
You see her there
at the bar
next to Jukebox Lane
just beyond the moon.
It was you who lied:
“She’s no angel.
Her wings are not real.
Everybody’s somebody’s baby.”
As sure as there’s heaven
beyond the sun:
a woman never forgets
the little things you do.

III.
When your time comes,
I wonder what you’ll do,
the waltz of the angels,
the moonlight, you.
Each Sunday afternoon
do you expect a reward from God?

IV.
As I sit here tonight,
in Heartbreak, U.S.A.—
the jukebox playin’,
four walls to hear me
“It’s a shame that all the blame
is on us women.”

V.
Let the sunshine in.
Face it—
A honky tonk woman’s
as good as a honky tonk man.

]]><![CDATA[Remembering the Alamo]]>Sat, 06 Mar 2021 08:00:00 GMThttp://jtoddhawkins.com/home/remembering-the-alamoA Poem on Ozzy, the Alamo, and Memory

Any casual fan of Texas history or beneficiary of the Texas education system can tell you that March 6 is Alamo Day, the commemoration of the climax of the thirteen-day siege that shaped the history of the state, the nation, and perhaps the world. In recognition of this day, I decided to dig up my only Alamo poem to date, which isn't so much about the battle as it is a rather notorious event that the site is also known for.

On February 19, 1982, Ozzy Osbourne infamously urinated on the Alamo. Or did he? This is the story that persists in popular imagination, but in reality, it was the sixty-foot-high cenotaph in the Alamo plaza that was the target of his misguided micteration. No less significant, of course, as the cenotaph, commissioned for the Texas centennial, is a monument to the Alamo defenders. Ozzy was jailed, fined, and released that same day, and he played the Hemisfair Arena Convention Center that night as planned. However, the powers that be in the Alamo City subsequently banned Ozzy from performing in San Antone, a ban upheld until 1992, when the Prince of Darkness issued a mea culpa and backed it up with a $10,000 donation to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

I'm not an Ozzy apologist, but like any poet, I try to look at other sides of a story. Those alternate perspectives, new ways of seeing, are what makes poetry what it is, in my opinion. One result of this was the following poem, which explores the idea of memory, empathy, perspective, and how something as seemingly objective as the historical record changes over time.

"crazy drain, or ozzy osbourne at the alamo" rings in at 100 words on the nose and was first published in Weaving the Terrain: 100-Word Southwestern Poems by Dos Gatos Press. It was subsequently reprinted in my William Barney-award-winning chapbook What Happens When We Leave as "Leaving San Antonio." I hope you find it . . . memorable.

]]><![CDATA[Marking Texas Independence Day]]>Tue, 02 Mar 2021 15:50:41 GMThttp://jtoddhawkins.com/home/remembering-texas-independence-daySam Houston—Soldier, Statesman, and . . . Poet

Happy Texas Independence Day, y'all!

Today, March 2, we remember the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence 185 years ago. One of the 59 signatories that day was Sam Houston. Houston is remembered for being a general in the Texas army, victor of the Battle of San Jacinto, one of the first senators from Texas, the first and third president of the Republic of Texas, and the governor of both Tennessee and Texas (the only person to be governor of two different U.S. states). He's far less known as a poet. Here is one of two known poems attributed to him.

“Texian Call to Arms”
               — Sam Houston, 1835

Unfurl the banner to the breeze,
              Come rear the standard high:
Upon our mountains, shores and seas,
              Be liberty the cry.

Shout the glad word—and shout again,
              That makes each bosom swell.
Bid the drum beat a martial strain
              Bid it sound oppression’s knell.

To arms! to arms! Let each firm hand
              Its battle sabre wield.
The oppressor comes—but stand;
              To tyrants never yield.

And bloody be his welcome here,
              Who would our sort enslave.
His myriad host we cannot fear:
              Who would? Tis not the brave.

On. On! and struggle to be free,
              And battle bravely on!
Our country calls—and who will see
              Her call in vain? Not one.

By our God—by our soil—we swear
              Freemen to live—or die,
And now ‘tis done—the standard rear
              Be liberty the cry!

Shall these rich vales, these splendid pines
              E’er brook oppression’s reign?
No! if the despot’s iron hand
              must here a scepter wave,
Raz’d be those glories from the land,
              And be the land—our grave.

]]><![CDATA[Celebrating Native American Heritage Month (Part 5)]]>Fri, 13 Nov 2020 08:00:00 GMThttp://jtoddhawkins.com/home/celebrating-native-american-heritage-month-part-5Savage Conversations with LeAnne Howe

Choctaw poet LeAnne Howe
photo from University of Georgia

scene from the Dakota War,
Attack on New Ulm (1904) by Anton Gag

For this installment of my month-long focus on Native American poets and poetry, I would like to shine a light on the work of Choctaw poet, fiction writer, filmmaker, and playwright LeAnne Howe. I came to know Howe’s work first through the anthology New Poets of Native Nations (ed. Heid E. Erdrich), which inspired me to seek out her 2019 book Savage Conversations. I was so glad I did. As a fan of historical poetry and Native voices, I instantly fell in love with this brave, powerful work. I feel strongly that any lover of poetry should check it out.

First, a little historical background… The story in this book is rooted in the Dakota War. In 1851, the Dakotas (Eastern Sioux), signed a treaty ceding 24 million acres of hunting land in present Minnesota in exchange for $1,665,000, reservation land, and the promise of future annuities. Over the years, the bulk of the annuities was stolen, lost, or never sent. In 1858, Minnesota statehood brought increased settlement. Settlers cleared land, ending the Dakotas’ traditional cycle of farming, hunting, fishing, and gathering wild rice. Settlers overhunted the Dakotas’ traditional game animals, reducing both their food and the furs they needed to trade for commerce. They encroached on their land. The northern part of the Dakota reservation was wrested from them, and they lost quarry rights elsewhere within the reservation. Much of the remaining land along the river was not suitable for farming. As a result, the Dakotas became dependent on white traders, who sold goods on credit and then collected payments directly from the U.S. government. The Dakotas descended into poverty and faced increasing hunger. Dakota women could be seen combing the floors of stables, looking for fallen oats to feed their children. The Dakotas, U.S. government representatives, and local traders met for negotiations in August 1862, with the Dakotas asking to purchase food on credit. Storekeeper Andrew Myrick, representing the traders, infamously replied, "So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry let them eat grass or their own dung."

On August 16, 1862, 4 Dakota braves killed 5 settlers in their homes. When they returned and told the elders what they had done, Chief Little Crow, remembering Myrick’s comments, decided to use the killings as a catalyst for an attack. Little Crow led warriors on a raid through nearby towns. Myrick was one of the first to be killed; his body was found with grass stuffed in his mouth. The Dakotas raided the countryside, defeating the small militias they encountered, burning townships to the ground, and killing white settlers they found. Finally, in September, President Lincoln turned his attention from the Civil War to send military units into the area, which met the Dakotas at the Battle of Wood Lake. After Wood Lake, the Dakotas surrendered. U.S. casualties were 77 soldiers and anywhere from 450 to 800 civilians killed. Dakota casualties were about 150 dead and hundreds captured.

In the subsequent weeks, 498 Dakotas were tried resulting in over 300 death sentences. Regarding the trials, Carol Chomsky of the University of Minnesota Law School, wrote, "The Dakota were tried, not in a state or federal criminal court, but before a military commission. They were convicted, not for the crime of murder, but for killings committed in warfare. The official review was conducted, not by an appellate court, but by the President of the United States. Many wars took place between Americans and members of the Indian nations, but in no others did the United States apply criminal sanctions to punish those defeated in war." Some of the trials took less than five minutes, and none of the defendants had legal representation.

The same week he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln commuted all but 38 of the death sentences. On the day after Christmas 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota, these 38 prisoners were executed by hanging before 4,000 cheering white spectators. This event remains the largest mass execution in American history. Bodies were later exhumed from the mass grave and used by doctors for medical research.

Jump to 1875. The war is over. Lincoln is dead. And his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln has been confined to an insane asylum in Illinois for “nervous derangement and fever in her head.” Nightly, Lincoln has hallucinations of being tortured by a Native warrior. This is the world into which Howe’s book enters.

Savage Conversations is a sequence of short poems, or novel or drama-in-poetry, describing Mary Lincoln’s time in Bellevue Place Sanatorium. She is visited by the spirit of a nameless hanged Dakota warrior, named “Savage Indian,” who nightly talks with her, peels back her scalp, slices her skin with sharpened flints to remove bones from her cheeks, and slits her eyelids and sews them open with wires. The other character in the poem is The Rope, a noose used in the hangings which writhes, speaks, and fashions brother and sister nooses with its hands. Susan Power, in her introduction, writes, “The words sound so innocent, but the action tells all: as he winds more rope into another noose, I can’t help thinking of all the rope that in human hands has viciously strung up so many people of color—the horrific tradition of lynching in America. The Rope is a merciless truth-teller."

Howe’s book is a powerful, brave, unflinching look into the legacy of Lincoln specifically and of White-Native interactions in general. It bends and twists our understanding of genre; it can read as a long poem and also be performed as a play (as it was in January). Howe has discussed her vision for how it might be filmed.

The book paints a wild, vicious picture of Todd Lincoln. For instance, Howe’s research revealed that Mary Todd Lincoln’s sickly children tended to revive when they were cared for by others and become sick again when in her presence. This led her to speculate that Todd Lincoln may have actually poisoned three of her own children: Münchhausen by proxy. She brings this up in the text. For example, Savage Indian at one point says,

I have seen the ghosts of Abraham, Eddie, Willie, even Tad,
Shrink when you enter a room,
Shadows escaping your burning sun.

What happens next, Gar Woman?
You’ve swallowed all but one of your eggs.

This is a searing look at history, a surreal and nightmarish deconstruction of the dominant colonial national folklore. A killing of idols and a raw presentation of the complicated, cruel, terrifying interactions we have with one another.

Howe has produced numerous other outstanding and influential works in addition to Savage Conversations. Her book Evidence of Red: Poems and Prose (2005) won the Oklahoma Book Award. Her novels include Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story (2007) and Shell Shaker (2001), which won the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award. Her most recent book, Choctalking on Other Realities, won the inaugural 2014 MLA Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages. She is the Eidson Distinguished Professor in American Literature in English at the University of Georgia, Athens. In August, she released the best selling When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, an anthology she co-edited with U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Muskogee [Creek]) and poet Jennifer Elise Foerster (Muskogee [Creek]), which features the work of more than 160 poets, representing nearly 100 indigenous nations.

]]><![CDATA[Celebrating Native American Heritage Month (Part 4)]]>Thu, 12 Nov 2020 06:50:53 GMThttp://jtoddhawkins.com/home/celebrating-native-american-heritage-month-part-4The Tragic and Triumphant Case of Thomas Slinker

Today I offer a special Veterans Day version of my month-long series on Native American poets and poetry. I would love to take a deep dive into the broad scope of Native war poetry, but unfortunately, I’m going to have to restrict my focus a bit. In fact, I’m going to go in the complete opposite direction—I'd like to talk about one particular poet whose known body of work consists of only one poem.

As the origin of Veterans Day of course traces back to Armistice Day, I'd like to examine a veteran of the Great War: Thomas Dewey Slinker, Bugler, Co. D, 28th Inf., AEF. Slinker’s story is particularly interesting to me because it so closely mirrors my own family story. Slinker and my great-grandfather—Jefferson “Jeff” Perry—both were Choctaw, both were enrolled in Carlisle Indian School on exactly the same day (September 9, 1916) as wards of non-parental guardians, and both left Carlisle to serve in the Army during World War I.

George Kaquatosh (L), Menominee, &
poet Thomas Slinker (R), Choctaw , c. 1918

Jefferson Perry, Choctaw,
my great-grandfather, c. 1918

Slinker was not known as a poet, and as best as I can tell, only one of his poems survives. It's his experiences, as much as his poetry, that intrigues me. I believe his poem is a fitting representation of so many Native voices that it deserves a detailed examination.

The United States Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, commonly known as Carlisle Indian Industrial School, opened in 1879 in an old Army barracks as the Indian Wars were coming to an end in the American West. Assimilation was the popular approach to the "Native problem," and Carlisle's mission was to “kill the Indian to save the man.” While on-res boarding schools had been present in many places in Indian Country, Carlisle marked a new approach to off-res residential education. Eventually, 26 Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools were set up across 15 states and territories in an effort to assimilate Native Americans into white American society. All followed the Carlisle model. Today, Carlisle is perhaps most often remembered as the alma mater of athlete Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox) and for the surprisingly formidable football teams they fielded in the 1910s, coached by the legendary Glenn “Pop” Warner. Between 1879 and 1918, when the school was closed, over 10,000 Native Americans passed through Carlisle’s doors. Students represented 140 tribes, mainly Lakota, Ojibwe, Seneca, Oneida, Cherokee, Apache, Cheyenne, and Alaska Native.

Today, many Native Americans consider the boarding school program another in a series of concerted efforts to eradicate their race. At Carlisle, as at other BIA schools, students were not allowed to practice their spiritual beliefs, were not allowed to speak their native languages, and were sometimes compelled to change their names. And in some cases, like Slinker's, they were not allowed to leave. Incoming students were forced to cut their hair, a spiritual act and sign of mourning in many Native cultures. Many modern Natives blame the boarding school system for their disconnect from their culture, their language, their people. We will never know the extent of the psychological damage inflicted by this program. While my great-grandfather and Slinker were at Carlisle at the exact same time and came from the same tribe and the same part of Oklahoma, it is likely they were deliberately separated; students of the same tribe were not allowed to stay together to discourage the use of their native languages and to promote English as a lingua franca at the school.

Slinker’s Carlisle file from the National Archives contains an utterly fascinating epistolary story. By all accounts, Slinker’s time at Carlisle was emotionally torturous. He was born to a Choctaw mother and a German father in 1898. He attended a series of Indian boarding schools within the Choctaw Nation: Jones Academy (perhaps at the same time as my great-grandfather), Armstrong Academy (leaving after contracting smallpox), and Goodland Academy (leaving because he “didn’t like the school”). By September 1916, he was in the custody of a guardian, Mr. A. Neely, though his mother at least, was still alive. That month Slinker was enrolled in Carlisle by Neely. He had just turned 18 and within a week, he was writing Neely for money, prompting the superintendent to inform Neely that no money should be sent directly to Slinker, only to the school disciplinarian. This was great relief to Neely who referred to his ward as a “spendthrift.”

In December, Slinker wrote Neely again, this time complaining of ill health and describing tuberculosis-like symptoms. Slinker suggested he should leave Carlisle and return home. Tuberculosis was a deadly scourge at Carlisle. Hundreds of children died there from the disease during the school's operation. Neely wrote the school to follow up on Slinker’s note, stating his doubt about the truth to his ward’s claims and stating that “To be frank with you he has never been able to stay with a job of any kind. He would not stay in school for any length of time anywhere.” He concluded that “unless it is a matter of serious consequence I want you to keep him there. His environments when at home are the worst you can imagine. He will practice any kind of deceit to get away from work of any kind. Watch him closely and you will find I am telling the truth.” The superintendent assured him that Slinker was in fine health and agreed that it was a ploy to get to leave Carlisle.

Soon afterward, Slinker demonstrated some of his, er, creativity, when he apparently invented a wild story about owning oil wells and having $3000 in the bank, stories which were investigated and refuted. These stories perhaps were inspired by the Carlisle staff's telling Slinker he did not have enough money to return home to Oklahoma, even if he were allowed to do so.

In a January 1917 letter, we find Neely again asking for regular reports on his ward and insisting the school keep close eye on his spending. An internal note affixed to the letter shows that Slinker had been writing his mother consistently, but not Neely. The response of the chief clerk at Carlisle was that Slinker, “while not a bad boy, has a peculiar disposition and needs watching and constant boosting.” This may perhaps have referred to Slinker’s experiencing clinical depression.

In February 1917, Slinker was again looking for ways to leave Carlisle. He had approached the superintendent about being sent out to work during the summer under the school’s outing program. Neely wrote the school that “I have hope for the boy if you can keep him there, otherwise I have none.”

By April, Slinker was writing Neely that he wished to come home over the summer to be with his mother. Neely replied to the superintendent that he should not be permitted to do so. “I want him to remain where he is; were he to come home, we would never get him back. Watch him closely during vacation.” Neely stated that Slinker had no money with which to return. Finding no audience with Neely, Slinker turned his efforts to the superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma in May. His request to go home to visit his mother was again denied by Carlisle on the advice of Neely.

In late May, Slinker received a letter from home, signed with a name that looks to me like “Babe.” The letter tells of illness, poor harvests, poverty, and death (e.g., “Edward is sick and sure looks bad if Lizzie don’t take good care of him he will never get through the summer”). “Babe” begs Slinker to come home in this heartrending letter (click thumbnails to enlarge):

As his options appeared more and more limited and a steady stream of letters arrived from Neely urging the administration to watch him closely, Slinker sent a cryptic, if not threatening letter to his guardian. In it, the poet accuses his guardian of not being "man enough" to allow him to return home to his family, assures him "You will see me before long," and concludes "you can just look for me."

Shortly thereafter, Slinker enlisted in the Army without notifying Carlisle staff or Neely.

With the onset of the War, a new opportunity arose, and scores of Carlisle students were afflicted with the "war fever," including the younger brother of Jim Thorpe.

The young Choctaw was finally free, and while he was still unable to return to his family, he was able to support them with a soldier's pay and was no longer beholden to his guardian. And now, finally, we can take a look at Slinker's poem, which he penned in France and sent back to Carlisle to be printed in the school newspaper, The Red Man and Arrow.

It's easy to see where the searing tone of this poem comes from, given Slinker's incredible back story. The Army gave Slinker a sense of pride and confidence, an "honored calling." He knows well what it is like to be looked down upon because of misconceptions and stereotypes about the way he looks. In fact, while Slinker is speaking explicitly of the soldier's uniform, he might as well be speaking of his Native-ness, his dark skin and the way it influenced others' reactions to him. I find this poem an absolutely perfect response to his emancipation. Here is a man who felt compelled to choose war in the trenches over boarding school.

I don't find much on Slinker after this. His Carlisle file contains several personal letters to the school superintendent, a man Slinker calls in one letter his "best friend." He seeks news from the school and is eager to relate his experiences and those of his fellow classmates he served with. It does appear he survived the war and was buried in Flint, Michigan in 1954. His legacy is a story of torment and triumph, a story shared by so many Native boarding school students, a story told for those who died before they found their voice, a story that comes to us through poetry.

Yakoke, Tom Slinker, thank you.

]]><![CDATA[Celebrating Native American Heritage Month (Part 3)]]>Mon, 09 Nov 2020 17:10:07 GMThttp://jtoddhawkins.com/home/celebrating-native-american-heritage-month-part-3The Story Behind My Poem "Ghost Dancers"

"Ghost Dancers" as it appeared in
Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Number 32

Breaking Camp as it appeared in
Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Number 32

For the third installment of my month-long feature on Native American poets and poetry, I’d like to discuss a poem of my own. “Ghost Dancers” is an ekphrastic poem I wrote in response to Henry F. Farny’s painting Breaking Camp.

In the fall of 2007, I was very fortunate to be invited by D’Arcy Randall to participate in “If These Walls Could Speak: The Blanton Poetry Project.” This project, which Dr. Randall co-curated with Kurt Heinzelman, was a collaboration between the University of Texas’s English Department and UT’s Blanton Museum of Art, one of the largest university museums in the country. To participate, I visited the Blanton and responded to artworks with poems, a process known as ekphrasis (when one work of art draws inspiration from another). I produced three poems, one on Claude Vignon’s David with the Head of Goliath, one on Jerry Bywaters’s Oil Field Girls, and one on Farny’s Breaking Camp.

They leave in the mystery
of the yellow dawn.
Their spiry tents
have fallen,
Their fires,
gone.

Henry F. Farny, a French immigrant, painted Breaking Camp in 1891 for a growing market of Eastern art consumers who wanted images of the quickly vanishing West. In contrast to his contemporaries Remington and Russell, Farny most frequently depicted idealized images of American Indians as opposed to cowboys. Farny painted his subjects in sublime, romanticized scenes, depicting a lifestyle that was soon to disappear—or rather one that had already gone. His Eastern patrons were eager to purchase his paintings, which reinforced their images of noble Indians riding the wild plains, unmolested by the intrusion of White America. Farny’s Breaking Camp is typical of his work; it shows a plains people, perhaps Dakota, preparing to move from one place to another by disassembling their camp, strapping travois to horses, rousing dogs, and leaving as dawn breaks on the snow. This peaceful nomadic existence was the romantic fantasy that Farny preserved so skillfully with his watercolors.

The prairie softly
fades in snow
lost in whiteness—
the bison also
lost, skulls clipped
clean by crows.

The Opening of the Fight at Wounded Knee
by Frederic Remington, 1891

Of course, this was not consistent with reality. By the time Breaking Camp was painted, Western Natives had suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of the U.S. Army. The year before Breaking Camp was painted, the U.S. Census showed that 248,253 Native Americans lived in the United States, down from 400,764 in the census of 1850. In fact, that year, the superintended for the census famously announced that the American frontier had been closed; there no longer existed a line demarking the limits of White American settlement from the east. At the end of 1890, on December 29, the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on Pine Ridge Agency, which many regard as ending the Indian Wars. I won’t go into the details of Wounded Knee here, but briefly, this massacre was the culmination of the Ghost Dance movement. Ghost Dancing was a Lakota religious ceremony rising from the belief that the White invaders would soon leave, the buffalo would reappear, and the spirits of the Lakota’s’ ancestors would return. The movement unnerved the Army, who feared it would result in insurrection. Seeking to disarm the Lakota at Pine Ridge, the Army provoked an exchange of gunfire and then began indiscriminately killing. By the end, as many as 300 Lakota were killed, 200 of which were women and children. Twenty Medals of Honor were awarded to U.S. soldiers for this campaign, including some that specifically cited soldiers for pursuing Lakota who were trying to escape or hide. Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum wrote after the massacre, "The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth." The point is this: The world Farny painted was already gone—or at least perilously endangered—when he painted it. White Americans wanted to embrace the romantic image of the noble Native, but could find no way to tolerate his way of life.

A country no longer here,
this is only paint. It is dust,
this fictional frontier. And still
they drag travois in whiteness
nowhere, peaceably if they will—
forcefully if they must.

That is the place my poem comes from. The census bureau’s statement. Farny’s watercolors and his eager patrons. The Ghost Dance. Wounded Knee. The end of a centuries-old way of life for an entire race. This intersection is where my poem exists. It’s a lot to process, and probably too much to try to pack into a poem. But through techniques like the epigram, the title, and the source painting, I had a lot of context to take advantage of, allowing me to hone the focus of the poem proper. It seemed phony to try to take the scene at face value. It also seemed incongruous to try to approach such a quiet painting with a tone of rage or anger. I opted for a voice of quiet defiance. At least I hope that's how it came off. I did enjoy playing with the form of the six-line stanza, the rhyme scheme, the shape of the stanzas. The final line refers to an oft-repeated expression: “peaceably if we can, forcefully if we must,” which was used on several occasions as the desired approach to America’s Indian removal policy.

reading "Ghost Dancers" at the April 2008 launch of the Blanton Poetry Project
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin

In April 2008, I was chosen with 19 other poets to read at an event launching the Blanton Poetry Project. At that event, I read “Breaking Camp” for the first time. In the spring of 2009, I was very happy to publish the poem in a special ekphrastic issue of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review. The issue, which was edited by friend Katherine Durham Oldmixon, featured several participants from the Blanton Poetry Project, and 16 poems were chosen to be displayed next to full color plates of the paintings they drew from. In 2017, the poem appeared in print again, this time in my first chapbook, Ten Counties Away. The Blanton Poetry Project remains one of my favorite experiences in my writing career, and I am grateful for the opportunity to interact with the museum's collection in such a meaningful way.

“Ghost Dancers” was one of the first poems I wrote addressing Native issues. It is part of an ongoing effort to use my platform to shine a light on Native issues, both historical and contemporary.

]]><![CDATA[Celebrating Native American Heritage Month (Part 2)]]>Fri, 06 Nov 2020 16:53:48 GMThttp://jtoddhawkins.com/home/celebrating-native-american-heritage-month-part-2Linda Hogan (Chickasaw)

Chickasaw Poet Linda Hogan (Photo by Hyoung Chang)

The next poet I’d like to feature in my Native American Heritage Month series is Chickasaw writer Linda Hogan. Hogan is the Chickasaw Nation’s Writer in Residence and has won many prestigious awards such as the Thoreau Prize from PEN, a Native Arts and Culture Award, the Colorado Book Award, a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, an American Book Award, a Lannan Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She currently resides in the Chickasaw capital of Tishomingo, OK.

It seems limiting to refer to Hogan as a great Chickasaw writer; she is quite simply a great American writer. According to her Wikipedia biography, “[Hogan’s] concentration is on environmental themes as well Southeastern tribal histories and indigenous spirits and culture. She has acted as a consultant in bringing together Native tribal representatives and feminist themes, particularly allying them to her native ancestry. She strives to balance the perception of male and female power in Native American culture that was disrupted by the effects of the early Christian Americans. Her work, whether fiction or non-fiction, expresses an indigenous understanding of the world. She has written essays and poems on a variety of subjects, both fictional and nonfictional, biographical and from research. Hogan has also written historical novels. Her work studies the historical wrongs done to Native Americans and the American environment since the European colonization of North America.”

Hogan’s poetry resonates powerfully with me, perhaps partly because of our shared heritage. I identify primarily as Choctaw (Chahta) because that is the tribe my ancestors affiliated with when they enrolled on the Dawes Rolls, and it is the tribe I am most culturally connected to. But in fact, my lineage is just as much (or more) Chickasaw (Chikasha). The Chahta origin myth describes the two tribes as descending from each of two brothers who were separated during their travels. The ancient mound Nanih Waiya in Mississippi is considered a sacred origin place for both tribes. Hence, the two peoples have always recognized a common ancestor, despite frequently warring with each other throughout pre-Colonial and Colonial history. When the Chickasaw reached Indian Territory at the end of the Trail of Tears, there was much intermingling among the two tribes, with the Chickasaw being settled by the US government among the Choctaw in the Choctaw Nation. Not until 1856 did the Chickasaws separate from the Choctaws in Indian Territory in an effort to restore direct authority over their tribal affairs. My family descends from both Chahta and Chikasha ancestors. But when it came time to enroll on the Dawes Rolls, each Native had to pick one tribe to affiliate with. Mine chose Choctaw. Nonetheless, the history of these two peoples is inextricably linked.

On a side note… during the French and Indian War, the Chickasaw sided with the British against the French in the Southeast. Interestingly, some historians place such importance on this alliance that they claim the Chickasaw can be credited with the fact that the United States is an English-speaking country. Now, that might be hyperbole, but it could also be considered another example of the profound, far-reaching influence Native people have had on our national literature.

Hogan writes poems that build upon this linguistic legacy and extend our understanding of the significance of origins. Take this excerpt from one of my favorites, “Naming the Animals” from The Book of Medicines.

After the words that called legs, hands,
the body
of man out of clay and sleep,
after the forgotten voyages of his own dreaming,
the forgotten clay of his beginnings,
after nakedness and fear of something larger,
these he named: wolf, bear, other
as if they had not been there
before his words, had not
had other tongues and powers
or sung themselves into life
before him.

Wow… absolutely stunning. You can find more of Linda Hogan’s work in her books The Radiant Lives of Animals, A History of Kindness, and several other books listed on her Amazon author’s page. For a quick survey, I recommend "Trail of Tears: Our Removal," "The History of Red," and "Lost in the Milky Way."

Also, be sure to check out the outstanding video below.

]]><![CDATA[Celebrating Native American Heritage Month (Part 1)]]>Wed, 04 Nov 2020 15:01:31 GMThttp://jtoddhawkins.com/home/celebrating-native-american-heritage-monthLaura Da' (Eastern Shawnee)

Poet Laura Da' of the Eastern Shawnee

November is Native American Heritage Month. To honor our Indigenous Peoples, I plan to use this space over the next month to promote Native poets and Native poetry. Please check in to discover or revisit some fantastic work representing the wide range of voices and experiences that embody Native poetry in the United States.

To begin, I'd like to share the work of Laura Da'. According to the Poetry Foundation: "A poet and a public-school teacher, Laura Da’ studied creative writing at the University of Washington and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is the author of the collections Instruments of the True Measure (University of Arizona Press, 2018) and Tributaries (University of Arizona Press, 2015), winner of the 2016 American Book Award and the chapbook The Tecumseh Motel. Her work has appeared in the anthologies New Poets of Native Nations (Graywolf Press, 2018) and Effigies II (Salt Publishing, 2014).

"A member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, she received a Native American Arts and Cultures Fellowship. Da’ has also been a Made at Hugo House fellow and a Jack Straw fellow. She lives in Newcastle, Washington, with her husband and son." She has received many honors, including ranking on Sherman Alexie's Top Ten Native American Poets.

Among Da's many stirring poems is "Passive Voice," a piece that connects Da's teaching experiences with the cultural legacy of genocide exacted on Western Natives. In this short, elegant poem, Da' wonders whether her language lessons will resonate beyond the classroom with her young students, whether they will bring these lessons to bear on the manner Native history has been written—a manner that uses language to strip the colonial government of agency, culpability, responsibility, guilt.

I came to know Da's work through the outstanding anthology New Poets of Native Nations (edited by Heid E. Erdrich, Graywolf Press). I highly recommend you seek out her work.

]]><![CDATA[New book released! This Geography of Thorns available TODAY!]]>Thu, 09 Jul 2020 07:00:00 GMThttp://jtoddhawkins.com/home/new-book-released-this-geography-of-thorns-available-todayGREAT NEWS!!! I'm absolutely thrilled to announce the release of my first full-length poetry book, This Geography of Thorns: Blues Poetry from the Mississippi Delta and Beyond. The book has been published by The Poetry Society of Texas as the winner of the 2019 Catherine Case Lubbe Manuscript Contest.

It's been seven years in the making. Seven years of exploring Southern graveyards and boarded-up shacks and dicey juke joints. Seven years of eating foods like pig ear sandwiches, chocolate gravy, and kudzu jelly. Seven years of reading, researching, driving, and listening. Seven years of getting lost and found. Seven years of living. I'm ecstatic to finally be putting it out in the world.

The book contains over 50 poems across 117 pages and includes a dozen or so of my own b&w photographs. It is available for order on Amazon, or, if you'd like a signed copy, e-mail me and I can sell you one directly for $13 ppd. As always, I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy.

I have a few readings in support of its release scheduled for fall, but of course I'm not sure what form those might take right now. Stay tuned.

These poems represent a journey deep into the heart of American Southern landscapes and personae. The pieces here discuss figures like Memphis Minnie, Bukka White, Mississippi John Hurt, Charley Patton, Jelly Roll Morton, and Muddy Waters as well as places like the Lorraine Motel, Clarksdale, New Orleans, Beale Street, and Dockery Plantation.

Contest judge Adam Tavel had the following to say about Hawkins’s book: “Haunted, meditative, and lyrical, This Geography of Thorns takes readers on an engrossing, Dantesque sojourn through the American south in search of that most authentic of American artforms: the blues. To call this book a mere homage to the blues, however, would be a disservice to its heart, its sophistication, and its astute avoidance of cliché. Polyphonic and brimming with myths, these poems express the inherent complexities not only among the blues, but also among its most famous and tragic practitioners such as the legendary Robert Johnson. Sacred and profane, aching and hopeful, sparse and decadent, the blues has, much like the land that made it, always been rife with contradictions. These poems lay bare that evocative emotional force while simultaneously acknowledging the inscrutable mystery at its core. Like midnight smoke in a juke joint, it can be sensed but not held.”

“Beyond question, Hawkins has written a major collection of poems that must be included in any discussion of Delta poetry today and way beyond.” — Philip C. Kolin (Distinguished Professor of English at University of Southern Mississippi; Emeritus Editor, The Southern Quarterly; Author of Emmett Till in Different States: Poems)

“J. Todd Hawkins’s This Geography of Thorns is an autumnal journey through the vivid and moving lives and soundscapes that bore the great Blues singers through their triumphs, sorrows, and often too-brief time on earth. . . . With as strong a sense of Place as any Southern writer, Hawkins gives us a memorable collection, one with an eloquent sense of joy and sorrow, both luminous and haunting.” — Jeffrey Alfier (Founder & Co-editor of Blue Horse Press & San Pedro River Review)

“I relish the times I’m reading a book of poetry and the lines convince my ears I’m sitting in an old joint listening to a band cutting things to bits. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I’m hooked, forever. That’s definitely the case with J. Todd Hawkins’ new collection, This Geography of Thorns. There’s blues in these fine poems, for sure, but a whole lot more joy, with language that sways and strikes like snake tattoos on a muscled arm. Poem by poem, Hawkins lays his melodies down like a master bluesman, and I feel blessed to have sat a while listening to him play.” — Jack B. Bedell (Poet Laureate, State of Louisiana, 2017-2019; Author of No Brother, This Storm)

]]><![CDATA[New haiku and haibun in Haiku Page]]>Mon, 04 May 2020 07:00:00 GMThttp://jtoddhawkins.com/home/new-haiku-and-haibun-in-haiku-page

Very happy to have had a haiku and a haibun published in the latest version of Haiku Page (Volume 10). Thanks to the editor, Dr. John Zheng, for inviting me to submit. I haven't been writing in Japanese forms much lately and haven't really been submitting unless invited, due to my work on the forthcoming book. So this was a nice surprise. I enjoyed having the chance to correspond with Dr. Zheng and come to know his work. His interests intersect mine quite a bit, particularly the melding of Japanese forms and Southern/Mississippi Delta themes. This is a really fine collection with a lot of important work and a lot of good pandemic-themed poems. I'm grateful to be a small part.

Enjoy!

breakfast with friends
cherry blossoms
fall in coffee

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