Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry Review
BIBLIOGRAPHY
McLaughlin, Timothy P. Walking
on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud
Indian School. New York, NY: Abrams Books for Young Readers. ISBN-13:
978-1-4197-0179-5
Nelson, S.D. Walking
on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud
Indian School. By Timothy P. McLaughlin. New York, NY: Abrams Books for
Young Readers. ISBN-13: 978-1-4197-0179-5
SUMMARY/ANALYSIS
Timothy P. McLaughlin’s poetry collection, Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky:
Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School, is an
incredible poetry collection and piece of culturally reflective poetic work. Presenting
poetry created by the Lakota youths themselves provides a tremendous amount of
insight into the true situation and lives of the Lakota living on a
reservation. This collection is broken into various categories containing
poems, these categories being the Natural World, Misery, Native Thoughts,
Silence, Spirit, Family, Youth and Dreams, and Language. Each categorical
section contains historic/present information about the Lakota tribe, illustrations
and captions (provided by S.D. Nelson), and reflections.
As each poem is written by a different student from the Red
Cloud Indian School, the poems varying in their poetic styles, patterns, and
formats. Some implement easy rhyme schemes, while others use line couplets and
free verse styles. They are all similar, however, in one way; they are all
honest and raw. One poem, “Ugly Life on Dirty Rez” by student Dena Colhoff, presents
the truth of live on a reservation in such an honest and raw form. The poem
goes as follows:
Life
on
Life
on the reservation
Life
on the reservation is dirty
Life
on the reservation is dirty, filthy
Life
on the reservation is dirty, filthy dogs.
This poem serves to provide an honest look into what it is
like for many of these Lakota youths living on reservations, implementing this triangular,
building style/format to do so. This poem uses repetition to emphasize wording
as each pairing of new words on the sentence builds upon the previous sentence fragment.
Each line provides more insight with each additional descriptive word,
beginning with life, then telling us how this poem is about life on a
reservation, then how it is dirty, dirty and filthy, and finally how it is
dirty and has filthy dogs. These last two words, “filthy dogs”, can be
interpreted as how the reservation is dirty and overfilled with such chaos and
filth as filthy dogs, or as how the Lakota themselves are forced to live in
poor and dirty circumstances, living like filthy dogs. Through this short poem the
reader is provided with the poor and dirty reality of life on a reservation,
learning such through the wording created by this student.
This poetic collection also contains colorful, powerful
images and artistry at the beginning of each category/section. These
illustrations depict the subject of each individual category and provide
information on the topic of the illustration and the poems within the section. For
example, the section “Misery” (beginning on page 27) is paired with an
illustration of a Native American on a horse out in nature. Both the Native American
and the horse are looking downward, looking solemn and defeated. The image also
shows wind blowing harshly upon them and their gloom, adding to the feeling of
cold and imminent defeat and sorrow. Instead of being drawn in a more naturalized
skin tone, the Native American in this illustration is portrayed as having a
pale blue skin tone, symbolic of the feeling of being “blue” and sad. Under the
illustration information is provided about the art, first providing the reader
with the name of the painting, which is End
of the Trail. There is also a small description of how alcohol was the
downfall and defeat of many Native Americans and their traditional ways of life,
but also a small blurb about how though this art depicts a defeated and
sorrowful character, today many more Native Americans choose to push forward
and leave behind these sorrowful feelings and their past victimization.
The collection of authentic poetry would be a wonderful addition
to a history classroom, incorporating the poems, art, insights, and historical
and present information provided within this collection into historical lessons
and class assignments. This is also a wonderful way to spread cultural awareness
to both children and adults, sharing personal experiences, opinions, and
expression of the Lakota through these poems. I would highly recommend this
collection to readers of all ages.
POEM PLUS “TAKE 5” ACTIVITIES
One example of a raw and powerful poem within this
collection is the poem “Silence” by student Julia Martin. This poem is
beautifully worded and does a wonderful job of describing her observation of
what silence is composed of where she lives. When one first thinks of silence,
we think of the elimination or lack of sound. As is beautifully described within
this poem, however, we rarely experience true silence, and silence observed in different
areas is typically accompanied by a mix of background noises. This poem does a
great job of conveying this point, as well as providing the reader with
awareness of the sounds observed on a reservation. There is also strength in
the style of poetry, using the initial phrase of “silence is the loudest noise I
ever heard” as both the beginning and ending of this poem, emphasizing this
point.
Silence
By Julia Martin
Silence is the loudest noise I ever heard. The wind blowing
gently across
the prairie grass. The horses galloping around the field,
the birds flying
quietly to the trees. Silence is the loudest noise I ever
heard.
Take 5
Activities
1. Read the
poem “Silence” aloud to the group, having them listen carefully to what the
poem is really saying about observing silence.
2. Reread
the poem aloud, having the group read the first and last sentences aloud along
with you.
3. Have
the students sit in complete silence for one full minute. Discuss what was
observe during this period of silence. Was the room completely silent? What
noises did the students observe? How does this compare to what the poem is
saying about silence?
4. Pair this
poem with a picture book about silence, such as the book The Sound of Silence
by Katrina Goldsaito (Little Brown Books for Young Readers, 2016). How does
this book demonstrate the sounds found within silence?
5. Link this
poem to another children’s poem about silence such as the poem “A Minute’s
Silence” by Paul Farley from The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You (Picador, 1998). How does this
poem compare to the first poem read? What is happening while observing silence?
Comments
Post a Comment