The Land Has Memory

The Land Has Memory

Author: Duane Blue Spruce

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2009-02-01

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 0807889784

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In the heart of Washington, D.C., a centuries-old landscape has come alive in the twenty-first century through a re-creation of the natural environment as the region's original peoples might have known it. Unlike most landscapes that surround other museums on the National Mall, the natural environment around the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is itself a living exhibit, carefully created to reflect indigenous ways of thinking about the land and its uses. Abundantly illustrated, The Land Has Memory offers beautiful images of the museum's natural environment in every season as well as the uniquely designed building itself. Essays by Smithsonian staff and others involved in the museum's creation provide an examination of indigenous peoples' long and varied relationship to the land in the Americas, an account of the museum designers' efforts to reflect traditional knowledge in the creation of individual landscape elements, detailed descriptions of the 150 native plant species used, and an exploration of how the landscape changes seasonally. The Land Has Memory serves not only as an attractive and informative keepsake for museum visitors, but also as a thoughtful representation of how traditional indigenous ways of knowing can be put into practice.


How to Survive in Your Native Land

How to Survive in Your Native Land

Author: Jack Herndon

Publisher: Innovators in Education

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780867094084

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James Herndon details classroom life and the inescapable realities of a school situation.


South Toward Home

South Toward Home

Author: Julia Reed

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2018-07-31

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1250166349

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A collection of essays written for the column "The high & the low" in the magazine Garden & gun.


Return to my Native Land

Return to my Native Land

Author: Aime Cesaire

Publisher: Archipelago

Published: 2014-06-03

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13: 193574495X

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A work of immense cultural significance and beauty, this long poem became an anthem for the African diaspora and the birth of the Negritude movement. With unusual juxtapositions of object and metaphor, a bouquet of language-play, and deeply resonant rhythms, Césaire considered this work a "break into the forbidden," at once a cry of rebellion and a celebration of black identity. More praise: "The greatest living poet in the French language."--American Book Review "Martinique poet Aime Cesaire is one of the few pure surrealists alive today. By this I mean that his work has never compromised its wild universe of double meanings, stretched syntax, and unexpected imagery. This long poem was written at the end of World War II and became an anthem for many blacks around the world. Eshleman and Smith have revised their original 1983 translations and given it additional power by presenting Cesaire's unique voice as testament to a world reduced in size by catastrophic events." --Bloomsbury Review "Through his universal call for the respect of human dignity, consciousness and responsibility, he will remain a symbol of hope for all oppressed peoples." --Nicolas Sarkozy "Evocative and thoughtful, touching on human aspiration far beyond the scale of its specific concerns with Cesaire's native land - Martinique." --The Times


Songs of Jamaica

Songs of Jamaica

Author: Claude McKay

Publisher: Graphic Arts Books

Published: 2021-05-28

Total Pages: 93

ISBN-13: 1513224050

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Songs of Jamaica (1912) is a poetry collection by Claude McKay. Published before the poet left Jamaica for the United States, Songs of Jamaica is a pioneering collection of verse written in Jamaican Patois, the first of its kind. As a committed leftist, McKay was a keen observer of the Black experience in the Caribbean, the American South, and later in New York, where he gained a reputation during the Harlem Renaissance for celebrating the resilience and cultural achievement of the African American community while lamenting the poverty and violence they faced every day. “Quashie to Buccra,” the opening poem, frames this schism in terms of labor, as one class labors to fulfill the desires of another: “You tas’e petater an’ you say it sweet, / But you no know how hard we wuk fe it; / You want a basketful fe quattiewut, / ‘Cause you no know how ‘tiff de bush fe cut.” Addressing himself to a white audience, he exposes the schism inherent to colonial society between white and black, rich and poor. Advising his white reader to question their privileged consumption, dependent as it is on the subjugation of Jamaica’s black community, McKay warns that “hardship always melt away / Wheneber it comes roun’ to reapin’ day.” This revolutionary sentiment carries throughout Songs of Jamaica, finding an echo in the brilliant poem “Whe’ fe do?” Addressed to his own people, McKay offers hope for a brighter future to come: “We needn’ fold we han’ an’ cry, / Nor vex we heart wid groan and sigh; / De best we can do is fe try / To fight de despair drawin’ night: / Den we might conquer by an’ by— / Dat we might do.” With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Claude McKay’s Songs of Jamaica is a classic of Jamaican literature reimagined for modern readers.


An American Sunrise: Poems

An American Sunrise: Poems

Author: Joy Harjo

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2019-08-13

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 1324003871

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A nationally best-selling volume of wise, powerful poetry from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States. In this stunning collection, Joy Harjo finds blessings in the abundance of her homeland and confronts the site where the Mvskoke people, including her own ancestors, were forcibly displaced. From her memory of her mother’s death, to her beginnings in the Native rights movement, to the fresh road with her beloved, Harjo’s personal life intertwines with tribal histories to create a space for renewed beginnings.


Your Native Land, Your Life

Your Native Land, Your Life

Author: Adrienne Rich

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1993-10-17

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 0393348172

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A major American poet faces her own native land, her own life, and the result is a volume of compelling, transforming poems. The book includes two extraordinary longer works: the self-exploratory "Sources" and "Contradictions—Tracking Poems," an ongoing index of an American woman's life. The poet writes, "In these poems I have been trying to speak from, and of, and to, my country. To speak of a different claim from those staked by the patriots of the sword; to speak of the land itself, the cities, and of the imaginations that have dwelt here, at risk, unfree, assaulted, erased. I believe more than ever that the search for justice and compassion is the great wellspring for poetry in our time, throughout the world, though the theme of despair has been canonized in this country. I draw strength from the traditions of all those who, with every reason to despair, have refused to do so."