Out There Somewhere (Sun Tracks, V. 49)

By Simon J. Ortiz

Book Overview

He has been out there somewhere for a while now, a poet at large in America. Simon Ortiz, one of our finest living poets, has been a witness, participant, and observer of interactions between the Euro-American cultural world and that of his Native American people for many years. In this collection of haunting new work, he confronts moments and instances of his personal past--and finds redemption in the wellspring of his culture. A writer known for deeply personal poetry, Ortiz has produced perhaps his most personal work to date. In a collage of journal entries, free-verse poems, and renderings of poems in the Acoma language, he draws on life experiences over the past ten years--recalling time spent in academic conferences and writers' colonies, jails and detox centers--to convey something of the personal and cultural history of dislocation. As an American Indian artist living at times on the margins of mainstream culture, Ortiz has much to tell about the trials of alcoholism, poverty, displacement. But in the telling he affirms the strength of Native culture even under the most adverse conditions and confirms the sustaining power of Native beliefs and connections: "With our hands, we know the sacred earth. / With our spirits, we know the sacred sky." Like many of his fellow Native Americans, Ortiz has been "out there somewhere"--Portland and San Francisco, Freiburg, Germany, and Martinique--away from his original homeland, culture, and community. Yet, as these works show, he continues to be absolutely connected socially and culturally to Native identity: "We insist that we as human cultural beings must always have this connection," he writes, "because it is the way we maintain a Native sense of existence." Drawing on this storehouse of places, times, and events, Out There Somewhere is a rich fusion taking readers into the heart and soul of one of today's most exciting and original American poets.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816522103
• ISBN13: 9780816522101
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Secret Pleasures

The "stars" of American Indian literature--James Welch, Leslie Silko, Scott Momaday--are only the beautiful surface of the genre. Dive deeper, and you will find treasures like Peter Blue Cloud, Ray Young Bear, Anita Endrezze, and the incomparable Simon J. Ortiz. Ortiz writes with a brilliance and clarity all Americans could aspire to, and this little collection of pieces, modulating from the grim depths of alcoholism and prison to the open spaces filled with joyful children, is representative of his work. His meditation on a sparrow's nest is worth the cover charge, discussion of the place of English in the mind of the Indian artist ("Beauty All Around") is a model of deeply felt exposition, and the cycle of poems on whether Indians exist is both witty and tragic.Taste the best, a literary flavor perhaps too exotic for the general reader, but worth the adventure. This is a writer to remember and return to.