Itch Like Crazy

KLIATT

Wendy Rose describes the "itch" in her title as a painstaking search as a woman of mixed-blood heritage, Miwok, Hopi and white, who is caught, as are many others, "between the brown bubbling mud / of an old woman's memory / and the angry girl within..." In her first section, "These Bones," she takes the reader on a journey into her family's past, tracing her ancestry back to Ireland and Scotland, then to Ontario, the Southwest and finally, California. She writes of the dislocation felt by immigrants fleeing persecution and how they, in turn, became oppressors. In her descriptions of the grueling pilgrimages of wagon trains going west, she captures the fear and determination of her great-great grandparents, Margaret and Joseph. Rose paints her scenes well, especially the mountains, plants and wildlife of the West. In her poem entitled "Joseph," she begins: "Emerging from between the reeds / a long-legged egret steps, /...bone-hard feet / pick their way among the tules / and white silk trails in still water..." She goes on to describe his quest for gold in 1849, the sacrifices of his wife leaving dead babies behind in Ireland, and the wounds he inflicted, as a miner, on the earth itself, "reshaping her flesh / with hydraulic cannons,..." In the second section, "This Heart," she moves to present time, memorializing the buffalo, grieving lost traditions and the blood shed by Indians in attempts to hold on to these traditions. The animal world is also subject to the new ways. In "Grandmother Rattler," she tells of stopping her car when she sees a rattlesnake, worshipped by some tribes as a good omen. Other people stop who demand it be killed, and she's compelled to give the snake, at theleast, a merciful, humane death. I find this second section not as strong as the first, which is grounded in the experiences of her ancestors. Still, these poems emerge out of deep feeling and are filled with anger, passion and loss. In the final section, "Listen Here for the Voices," Rose documents her family history with narratives and accompanying photographs, most from the 1800s. In her introduction to Part III, she says, "Our elders tell us, no matter from which tradition they speak, that we come from Earth, that the substance of our bodies is the same as Earth and all living things..." Her poems, narratives and photos pull together the threads of this diverse ancestry to form a complex web whose patterns are irregular but rich in experience and emotion. This is a stirring work, one that would greatly enrich any collection or class on Native American literature. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Univ. of Arizona Press, 88p. illus., Budin