{"id":464992,"date":"2017-11-18T06:11:03","date_gmt":"2017-11-18T13:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=464992"},"modified":"2017-11-18T06:11:03","modified_gmt":"2017-11-18T13:11:03","slug":"a-map-of-language-charted-by-navajo-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/11\/a-map-of-language-charted-by-navajo-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"A map of language charted by Navajo philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Outside her office<\/strong> at the Peaceful Spirit Treatment Center on the Southern Ute Reservation, Navajo poet Esther Belin takes in the thin late-fall sun. Here in the Four Corners of southwestern Colorado, where the Southern Ute, Navajo, Ute Mountain Ute and Jicarilla Apache reservations come together, the landscape is both beautiful and brutal in its spareness, much like Belin\u2019s poems. She\u2019s also an intake counselor at the addiction center, and she lives and works in that world of intersectionality, where language and identity overlap with the triumphs and failures of addiction.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcn.org\/issues\/49.19\/books-and-authors-a-map-of-language-charted-by-navajo-philosophy?utm_source=nmpolitics.net&amp;utm_medium=web\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">High\u200b \u200bCountry\u200b \u200bNews<\/a>\u200b,\u200b \u200ba\u200b \u200bnonprofit\u200b \u200bnews\u200b \u200borganization\u200b \u200bthat\u200b \u200bcovers\u200b \u200bthe\u200b \u200bimportant\u200b \u200bissues\u200b \u200bthat define\u200b \u200bthe\u200b \u200bAmerican\u200b \u200bWest.\u200b \u200b\u200b<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcn.org\/subscribe?src=header\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Subscribe<\/a>\u200b,\u200b \u200bget\u200b \u200bthe\u200b\u200b \u200b<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcn.org\/enewsletter\/commons-email-signup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">enewsletter<\/a>\u200b,\u200b \u200band\u200b \u200bfollow\u200b \u200bHCN\u200b \u200bon\u200b\u200b \u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/highcountrynews\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a>\u200b\u200b \u200band\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/highcountrynews\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a>\u200b.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Her new book, <em>Of Cartography<\/em>, is framed by the four cardinal directions and their symbolism in Navajo history. It digs into the cultural and physical representation of Navajo language, how landscape shapes identity and what it means to be Indian.<\/p>\n<p>Her poems try to capture the rhythm and storytelling intrinsic to the Din\u00e9 language. \u201cI wanted to investigate whether there was a Navajo meter or diction, and how that voice could come out,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a collection of poems squeezed together. This was about pairing identity politics with Navajo philosophy, which is all very orderly, and then telling my story through the structure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That structure shapes the reading experience: Some of the poems are lists, others are questions. Some are wordless grids, X-marked within four quadrants. As a reader, I felt initially uncertain how to read the book, almost queasy. That\u2019s deliberate: Belin wants to show Navajo readers that they don\u2019t have to conform to English standards while giving outsiders a sense of the complicated poetics of tribal storytelling. \u201cIt\u2019s for the person who is willing to engage with the pieces,\u201d she says. \u201cWhich can be difficult, but that\u2019s kind of the point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Belin\u2019s first book, <em>From the Belly of my Beauty<\/em>, was published in 1999 after the birth of her second daughter. It was a more linear look at being an Indian woman growing up in a white world, stretched between two landscapes: Southern California, where her parents were placed through the federal Indian relocation program, and the Navajo Reservation, where she\u2019s now spent 20 years with her husband and four daughters.<\/p>\n<p>That book, a highly visceral depiction of an off-reservation Indian (Belin says she\u2019s comfortable with that word), challenged the stereotypes of Native identity, rebuking the kind of questions she\u2019s been asked since kindergarten. It won the 2000 American Book Award.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_465001\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 336px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-465001\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/image-336x243.jpeg\" alt=\"Of Cartography\" width=\"336\" height=\"243\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/image-336x243.jpeg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/image.jpeg 550w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heather Hansman, from Of Cartography<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Esther Belin&#8217;s poems are presented in a graphical way.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In the nearly two decades since, she\u2019s taught college and high school writing, finished an MFA program, started counseling and settled into the Southwest. <em>Of Cartography<\/em> is a sweeping reflection of all that, showing how tribal language can translate feelings and how poetry can help heal the wounds from a history of marginalization.<\/p>\n<p>Belin twists up her long black hair as we talk, revealing big turquoise earrings. Our conversation skips between critical race theory, road trips, her daughter\u2019s college syllabus, and the arcane knot of reservation land-use policy. Her poems braid disparate lines together, too, juxtaposing small-scale details, like evening chores, with the history of Indian relocation policy.<\/p>\n<p>That bundling of ideas draws on Din\u00e9 language and culture. \u201cThe written tradition for us started in boarding school,\u201d she says. \u201cTribal language is not compartmentalized; it\u2019s about how you\u2019re connected to all these things. Tribal people have a history of trauma from learning that communication form, of reformulating to fit the structure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because of that, she says, she started <em>Of Cartography<\/em> with form instead of content. She sought to reflect the fluidity of tribal language, in which there\u2019s no single linear way to tell a story. Many of the poems can be read in several directions, and in poems like \u201cBefore we Begin,\u201d she plays with line breaks and blank space, to show motion and connection.<\/p>\n<p>She has several other poetic projects in the works, including a biography of Olympic gold medalist Jim Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, which looks at Native masculinity, and a book about the history and federal policies of Navajo land. \u201cThe easy piece is doing it through poem. Or at least it is for me,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s my natural voice.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s also working with three other writers on a Din\u00e9 reader, an anthology of works from 20 Navajo writers, which she sees as a resource for Navajo students and teachers who come to the reservation without a background in tribal scholarship, a way to bridge the gap between state curriculum and Navajo culture.<\/p>\n<p>Belin says she wants <em>Of Cartography<\/em> to show how structure and language can start to form a tribal canon, and to charge the reader with connecting the dots and understanding the history that shapes Indian life. The last poem, \u201cAssignment 44,\u201d holds that directive:<em> \u201cAnalyze the above conversation. Read it aloud. Read it Loudly. Weave \/ a thread through it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Heather Hansman lives in Seattle. She\u2019s currently writing a book about water management and the Green River. Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@hhansman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@hhansman<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Esther Belin is trying to shape a uniquely Navajo way of writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":465001,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[709,3586],"class_list":["post-464992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-native-americans","tag-navajo-nation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}