How We Became Human

I'm a big fan of poetry. And Native poetry has really caught my ear this semester. I was a huge fan of Qwo-Li's work. Most of Joy Harjo's book didn't really resonate with me however. I find her singing voice irritating. But I love her sax.

My favorite part of How We Became Human was the introduction, simply because of the stories. I love the dimly lit, smokey and dingy bar atmosphere. My family is all from England. I visit there a lot and I love the traditional pub feeling. It is home. I don't smoke, but I love the stuffy cigarette filled pub because it has soul. Her stories of the introduction are soulful. My favorite part of the intro was the story of the palm reader during her deep depressed period. There are a lot of unconventional spiritual beliefs that I hold personally, and this story truly resonated with me.

Few of her poems moved me. Some however, I found very interesting. I read through most of the book... and these are the ones I found myself coming back to.

I Am A Dangerous Woman: the final stanza is incredible. Words and knowledge are power. Harjo expresses this by the clicking of the gun inside her head.

I am a dangerous woman,

but the weapon is not visible.
Security will never find it.
They can't hear the clicking
of the gun inside my head.

The Woman Hanging From The Thirteenth Floor Window: The title alone had me expecting great things.

She thinks she will be set free.

I love the rhetoric here of "thinks". Also that she is not alone. How she also thinks back on memories and life. The people below. Finally the indecisiveness at the end left me hanging in a way I cannot explain. The entire poem I was reading to the end wondering what she was going to do. I didn't want a happily ever after and I didn't want her to jump either. Harjo's use of "or" let me take both.

Remember: My favorite poem of the entire book.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. he is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.

Upon reading this part I had to stop and read the entire thing over, and then again out loud to the woman I love (who was driving the car). The depth of line three left me stunned. The memory here is so true. Also that of earth whose skin we are is so true. They say you are what you eat... but it goes so much deeper than that. Also the colors of earth being representative of the different skins of people, and that brown is in its own line. We are earth.

Songs From The House Of Death, Or How To Make It Through To The End Of A Relationship: First I like the numbering of the sections and what they all are. This is one of the first poems of ending that fill most of the end of the book. We all leave things behind in this world. And the people we touch the greatest of all. "All Cities will be built and then destroyed."

Again, there wasn't much I took from How We Became Human, but the poems which I did love I cherish none the less.