Author Archives: d.perry

Waȟpániča
by Layli Long Soldier

I begin a line about white buttes that bend chiseled faces and click stone eyelids at night, but abandon it. Instead, I push my love into this world and mail you a summer letter. From mailbox to door, you read the commas aloud. I’ve become a wife of bottled water comma black liner at the lash comma and sleeves to the wrist. These weeks alone alone alone comma I pull my body to a table of empty chairs and sometimes I cannot stop the impulse to command. Alone alone I instruct sit down comma eat up comma and I write in detail to hush an echo comma the rupture of a fault line.

• 

I wanted to write about waȟpániča a word translated into English as poor comma which means more precisely to be destitute to have nothing of one’s own. But tonight I cannot bring myself to swing a worn hammer at poverty to pound the conditions of that slow frustration. So I ask what else is there to hear? A comma instructs me to divide a sentence. To pause. The comma orders a sequence of elements the comma is caesura itself. The comma interrupts me with, quiet.

• 

Father’s Day comma I am not with you. I stare at a black-and-white photo of you comma my husband in a velvet shirt comma your hair tied back and your eyes on the face of our sleeping daughter. When I write comma I come closer to people I want to know comma to the language I want to speak.

• 

Then a friend remarks When we speak comma question marks dashes lines little black dots or jiggle in the air before us comma in truth it’s the rise and fall of the voice we must capture to mean a thing in writing. Leaning his head toward a page with some vulnerable line he adds And isn’t it interesting how a comma can tip a phrase into sentimentality.

• 

So I disassemble mechanics comma how to score sound music movement across the page. I watch the compassionate comma slow the singular mind of two lovers. When we cannot speak our mind the comma will cool will sigh it will lick an envelope for us. Because the tongue of a comma is detached, patient.

• 

Yet I feel forced to decide if poor really means brittle hands dust and candy-stained mouths a neighbor girl’s teeth convenience store shelves Hamburger Helper a dog’s matted fur a van seat pulled to the living room floor those children playing in the carcass of a car mice on the floorboard my sweeping chill hantavirus the ripe smell a horse chewed ripped its backbone exposed the swarms of do-gooders their goodly photos the heat the cold the drunks we pass waving dollar bills again tonight a bang on the door the stories no one here can stop the urge to tell I am buried in. This is the cheapest form of poor I decide it’s the oil at the surface I’m tempted to say it. But a friend asserts that anyone asserting that poverty isn’t about money has never been stomach-sick over how to spend their last $3 comma on milk or gas or half for both with two children in the backseat watching. I agree to let meanings and arguments with my head thrust into the punctuation of poverty here, breathe.

• 

Because waȟpániča means to have nothing of one’s own. Nothing. Yet I intend the comma to mean what we do possess so I slow myself to remember it’s true a child performs best when bonded with a parent before the age of five closely comma intimately. Next to you comma our daughter closes her eyes and you rest your heads blue-black lakes comma historic glass across the pillow. She’ll keep this. And if it’s true that what begins as trouble will double over to the end will raise its head as a period to our sentence then I admit I perform best to the music in between the rise and fall of the voice. Nevertheless I dig through my pockets dresser drawers bookshelves comma meticulous picking comma because I must write it to see it comma how I beg from a dictionary to learn our word for poor comma in a language I dare to call my language comma who am I. A sweeping chill my stained mouth just oil at the surface comma because I feel waȟpániča I feel alone. But this is a spill-over translation for how I cannot speak my mind comma the meta-phrasal ache of being language poor.

The Economy by Ariana Reines

I didn’t love

That I had this

Tendency

Toward melody

Or the appetite for drama

Always obvious

In my thinking

& in everything

I did. I wasn’t TV

Though I watched myself

Sometimes passively

As though brained or

Bludgeoned out of the fullness

Of my own reality. I felt

I had to respect what seduced me

Even if stupidly—even when it made

Me stupid—or meant I was—

Making of my mind a begging bowl

Laying myself waste for the devil

Making an innocent victim of the child within

So ferociously did I fear

Something adult, like sovereignty

Survival was a big-

Box-store-bought

Blanket. Not wet

But scented

With the antiseptics

Of the factory

It would take days

To air out, get it to resemble

The picture of something homey

And grandmother-made

I know what it’s like to pay

Money for such.

The three-dimensional

Image of things. To find

Them feeling hollow and smelling

Wrong. I know what it’s like.

The imitation of life.

I almost know what it means.

I disciplined my own form and the thinking

Within me. That may not be a religion

But it is grim theology.

The more muscle I had the better

I felt I could contain and conduct

The sorrow within. The smoother

Ran my blood and lymph.

My body dismayed me and I hated,

Adored it. Recurrent dreams

Of defective dolls kept coming back

To warn me. You are not a thing.

You are not the object against which forces

Tilt that you cannot control.

You are the entire subject of the world.

Tears rolled down a cheek of stone

My friend Terry writes about water

And land, mother and brother

Like a singer. I once despaired

To her that the only endangered

Species I had managed to speak

On behalf of up to that moment

Was myself. This seemed squalid

And narrow to me. Terry said it was real

Territory. I blinked melancholy

Into the seething night

Like a spotted owl in the eye

Of a security camera

Black and white bird without

Offspring or prey. My body

Is filled with plastic

I left my mother to die

To write these lines

You will parry that such is a false

Economy. But so

Are all the other ones we live by

The spiral is an attempt at controlling the chaos.
It has two directions. Where do you place
yourself, at the periphery or at the vortex?
Beginning at the outside is the fear of losing
control; the winding in is a tightening, a
retreating, compacting to a point of
disappearance. Beginning at the center is
affirmation, the move outward is a representation
of giving, and giving up control; of trust, positive
energy, of life itself.

Spirals—which way to turn—represent the fragility
in an open space. Fear makes the world go round.

– Louise Bourgeois

https://moodle.swarthmore.edu/pluginfile.php/509827/mod_resource/content/2/Layli-Long-Soldier-Whereas.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3DrH7RFbbQekPXuE8px64gEETPlb7Qu8h8n6gqJjIkNFAT2drp_QnrNN0

38
by Layli Long Soldier

Here, the sentence will be respected.

I will compose each sentence with care, by minding what the rules of writing dictate.

For example, all sentences will begin with capital letters.

Likewise, the history of the sentence will be honored by ending each one with appropriate punctuation such as a period or question mark, thus bringing the idea to (momentary) completion.

You may like to know, I do not consider this a “creative piece.”

I do not regard this as a poem of great imagination or a work of fiction.

Also, historical events will not be dramatized for an “interesting” read.

Therefore, I feel most responsible to the orderly sentence; conveyor of thought.

That said, I will begin.

You may or may not have heard about the Dakota 38.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of it, you might wonder, “What is the Dakota 38?”

The Dakota 38 refers to thirty-eight Dakota men who were executed by hanging, under orders from President Abraham Lincoln.

To date, this is the largest “legal” mass execution in US history.

The hanging took place on December 26, 1862—the day after Christmas.

This was the same week that President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

In the preceding sentence, I italicize “same week” for emphasis.

There was a movie titled Lincoln about the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was included in the film Lincoln; the hanging of the Dakota 38 was not.

In any case, you might be asking, “Why were thirty-eight Dakota men hung?”

As a side note, the past tense of hang is hung, but when referring to the capital punishment of hanging, the correct past tense is hanged.

So it’s possible that you’re asking, “Why were thirty-eight Dakota men hanged?”

They were hanged for the Sioux Uprising.

I want to tell you about the Sioux Uprising, but I don’t know where to begin.

I may jump around and details will not unfold in chronological order.

Keep in mind, I am not a historian.

So I will recount facts as best as I can, given limited resources and understanding.

Before Minnesota was a state, the Minnesota region, generally speaking, was the traditional homeland for Dakota, Anishinaabeg, and Ho-Chunk people.

During the 1800s, when the US expanded territory, they “purchased” land from the Dakota people as well as the other tribes.

But another way to understand that sort of “purchase” is: Dakota leaders ceded land to the US government in exchange for money or goods, but most importantly, the safety of their people.

Some say that Dakota leaders did not understand the terms they were entering, or they never would have agreed.

Even others call the entire negotiation “trickery.”

But to make whatever-it-was official and binding, the US government drew up an initial treaty.

This treaty was later replaced by another (more convenient) treaty, and then another.

I’ve had difficulty unraveling the terms of these treaties, given the legal speak and congressional language.

As treaties were abrogated (broken) and new treaties were drafted, one after another, the new treaties often referenced old defunct treaties, and it is a muddy, switchback trail to follow.

Although I often feel lost on this trail, I know I am not alone.

However, as best as I can put the facts together, in 1851, Dakota territory was contained to a twelve-mile by one-hundred-fifty-mile long strip along the Minnesota River.

But just seven years later, in 1858, the northern portion was ceded (taken) and the southern portion was (conveniently) allotted, which reduced Dakota land to a stark ten-mile tract.

These amended and broken treaties are often referred to as the Minnesota Treaties.

The word Minnesota comes from mni, which means water; and sota, which means turbid.

Synonyms for turbid include muddy, unclear, cloudy, confused, and smoky.

Everything is in the language we use.

For example, a treaty is, essentially, a contract between two sovereign nations.

The US treaties with the Dakota Nation were legal contracts that promised money.

It could be said, this money was payment for the land the Dakota ceded; for living within assigned boundaries (a reservation); and for relinquishing rights to their vast hunting territory which, in turn, made Dakota people dependent on other means to survive: money.

The previous sentence is circular, akin to so many aspects of history.

As you may have guessed by now, the money promised in the turbid treaties did not make it into the hands of Dakota people.

In addition, local government traders would not offer credit to “Indians” to purchase food or goods.

Without money, store credit, or rights to hunt beyond their ten-mile tract of land, Dakota people began to starve.

The Dakota people were starving.

The Dakota people starved.

In the preceding sentence, the word “starved” does not need italics for emphasis.

One should read “The Dakota people starved” as a straightforward and plainly stated fact.

As a result—and without other options but to continue to starve—Dakota people retaliated.

Dakota warriors organized, struck out, and killed settlers and traders.

This revolt is called the Sioux Uprising.

Eventually, the US Cavalry came to Mnisota to confront the Uprising.

More than one thousand Dakota people were sent to prison.

As already mentioned, thirty-eight Dakota men were subsequently hanged.

After the hanging, those one thousand Dakota prisoners were released.

However, as further consequence, what remained of Dakota territory in Mnisota was dissolved (stolen).

The Dakota people had no land to return to.

This means they were exiled.

Homeless, the Dakota people of Mnisota were relocated (forced) onto reservations in South Dakota and Nebraska.

Now, every year, a group called the Dakota 38 + 2 Riders conduct a memorial horse ride from Lower Brule, South Dakota, to Mankato, Mnisota.

The Memorial Riders travel 325 miles on horseback for eighteen days, sometimes through sub-zero blizzards.

They conclude their journey on December 26, the day of the hanging.

Memorials help focus our memory on particular people or events.

Often, memorials come in the forms of plaques, statues, or gravestones.

The memorial for the Dakota 38 is not an object inscribed with words, but an act.

Yet, I started this piece because I was interested in writing about grasses.

So, there is one other event to include, although it’s not in chronological order and we must backtrack a little.

When the Dakota people were starving, as you may remember, government traders would not extend store credit to “Indians.”

One trader named Andrew Myrick is famous for his refusal to provide credit to Dakota people by saying, “If they are hungry, let them eat grass.”

There are variations of Myrick’s words, but they are all something to that effect.

When settlers and traders were killed during the Sioux Uprising, one of the first to be executed by the Dakota was Andrew Myrick.

When Myrick’s body was found,

                                                                               his mouth was stuffed with grass.

I am inclined to call this act by the Dakota warriors a poem.

There’s irony in their poem.

There was no text.

“Real” poems do not “really” require words.

I have italicized the previous sentence to indicate inner dialogue, a revealing moment.

But, on second thought, the words “Let them eat grass” click the gears of the poem into place.

So, we could also say, language and word choice are crucial to the poem’s work.

Things are circling back again.

Sometimes, when in a circle, if I wish to exit, I must leap.

And let the body                                                   swing.

From the platform.

                                                                                Out

                                                                                                                        to the grasses.

“In my study, I noticed something interesting about the etymology of “genre” and “gender.” Both words come from the Latin word “genus,” translating to “race.” It was an enlightening discovery to learn that “race,” “gender,” “genre,” and even “class” all come from the same word in Latin, thereby having the same function.”

https://www.e-flux.com/journal/117/387112/noise-is-the-nigga-of-sound/

https://www.e-flux.com/journal/138/553676/who-haunts/

https://www.e-flux.com/notes/575616/how-to-haunt-oppenheimer-and-black-hanford?utm_campaign=later-linkinbio-e_flux&utm_content=later-39391406&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkin.bio