Native American Poetry Reading: Natalie Diaz and Orlando White

Native American culture has traditionally been an oral culture, and although the Native American poets Natalie Diaz and Orlando White are published authors, hearing them speak aloud provides the listener with a critical, additional appreciation of their art. The Aztec-American poet Natalie Diaz's work "I Lean Out the Window and She Nods Off in Bed, the Needle Gently Rocking on the Bedside Table" is a poem that must be heard aloud to be fully appreciated. The poem unfolds in a series of luxurious, sensuous images: "I've brushed glowing halves of avocados/lamping like bell-hipped women in ecstasy. / A wounded Saint Teresa sketched to each breast." The poem paints a picture in words of the woman who is being observed, and Diaz's emotion, the detail with which she describes the figure and the intensity of her inflection give additional weight to every...
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