THIS WEEK’S MUSE
LESLIE MARMON SILKO
“I write in order to find out what I truly know and how I really feel about certain things. Writing provides the solitude necessary to reflect on being in this world.”
Leslie Marmon Silko is an American writer of Laguna Pueblo Indian heritage. She is considered one of the key figures in the “first wave” of what is commonly described as the Native American Renaissance – the growth in literary works by Native Americans in the United States that began in the late 1960s.
Silko was born in 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico and grew up on the Laguna Pueblo reservation. “I am of mixed-breed ancestry,” she said, “but what I know is Laguna.”
Storytelling was an important early driver for Silko.“I learned to read as soon as I could,” she said. “I wanted stories without having to depend on adults to tell or read stories to me.” Storytelling around Laguna culture and history was a fundamental way of ensuring their heritage was remembered, and Silko grew up with this important perspective.
Published success began when she was twenty years old. Her first collection of poems—Laguna Woman—was published in 1974. It centers around Laguna spirituality and the struggle for “Native Americans to fit into a white western” dominated world. Her first novel—Ceremony—followed in 1977. It follows a World War II veteran who heals from the emotional damage of war using Laguna spirituality. It earned Silko literary acclaim and established her as one of the first female Native American novelists.
Poems or prose, her writing is carefully structured to emphasize specific cultural themes, including the Native Americans’ non-western concept of time, the strength of women, and the need for political and social change.
“Writing can’t change the world overnight, but writing may have an enormous effect over time, over the long haul.”
This lifelong interest in preserving Laguna traditions and her enduring search for a better understanding of how the past can explain the present fuels Silko’s writing. She sees her work as a continuum of the stories told and retold through the Laguna people’s history, drawing on the stories she heard and discovered for herself as a child.
“Only through the arts — music, poetry, dance, painting, writing — “can we really reach each other.”
Her storytelling weaves the same messages, philosophies, and ideas first told hundreds of years ago. Consequently, aside from her ability to write compelling, engaging stories, her importance also rests in how she has established an opposition to the prevailing wind by challenging and confronting the accepted definition of the American literary tradition.
“I see myself as a member of the global community. My old folks who raised me saw themselves as citizens of the world. We see no borders. When I write, I am writing to the world, not to the United States alone.”
HAPPENING
Tuesday, December 13. 6–7pm
ENGLISH HANDBELLS
With Norma Atwood
Play in a group setting and create beautiful harmonious melodies!
$14 – Member, $16 – Non-Member