Indigenous Peoples Day

      Today (October 9, 2023) is Indigenous Peoples Day -- and I call attention to a thought-provoking activist poem by Linda Hogan, a member of the Chickasaw Nation and an important contributor to indigenous literature.  Here are the opening lines of Hogan's "Embodied."

     I am embodied first by the numbers
     given by my grandparents,
     no choice but to sign the Dawes Act.

Hogan's complete poem is available here in World LIterature Today. 

A portion of Hogan's poem was also posted here in this blog -- back in 2020.

We become what we think . . .

     Browsing a recent issue of World Literature Today, I have found a thought-provoking activist poem by Linda Hogan that considers the ways we are shaped by "our numbers."  I offer below its opening stanzas:

       Embodied   by Linda Hogan

       I am embodied first by the numbers
       given my grandparents,
       no choice but to sign the Dawes Act.