U.S. & Canadian Poetry - 19th Century - Literary Criticism, Science & Technology in Literature, Oral Tradition & Storytelling, Native North American Peoples - Art & Artifacts, Native American Studies - Art & Artifacts - General & Miscellaneous, Latin Amer
Log in to track your reading progress.
Overview
A long-overdue comparative study of the American voice in hemispheric poetry, Poet-Chief brings cross-cultural and interdisciplinary considerations to the work of Whitman and Neruda. Nolan proposes American Indian poetics as the model for the poets' own poetics. Whitman and Neruda wrote from an Americanist perspective. Both developed an oral, tribal poetics and assumed shamanic voices and personae in their major works, Leaves of Grass and Canto General. In addition they each presented the initiatory journey of a shaman in "The Sleepers" and "Alturas de Macchu Picchu." Despite the historical, cultural, and individual distinctions between their works, they both celebrate a tribal community and assume the functions of what Whitman calls the "poet-chief." These points of intersection between the poetics of Whitman, Neruda, and the American Indian clarify the nature of that broader voice identified as the native in American poetry. This fresh reading of two major American poets helps to break through the partitions that separate the native, English, and Spanish poetic responses to the American hemisphere.Editorials
Brian Swan
A sensitive exploration of a complex topic. Nolan establishes a secure cultural matrix for his explorations, and expands our knowledge of two great poets and of America. He helps us to see Whitman and Neruda in a new light.—editor of Smoothing the Ground
Michael Castro
James Nolan's Poet-Chief is an important work. It establishes a rich new literary language and landscape-- that of Native American poetics and shamanism-- offering essential means and perspectives for understanding the greatest poets of the Americans-- Whitman and Neruda. Nolan's approach has great possibilities for seing clearly contemporary writers of 'unification and healing' whose work exists outside of the European tradition.—author of Interpreting the Indian
Stephen Tapscott
An ambitious and exciting book, Poet Chief is a helpful, organized, sensible fresh addition to scholarship.—author of American Beauty
Book Details
Published
December 1, 1994
Publisher
Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, c1994.
Pages
270
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780826314840