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From the Belly of My Beauty (Paperback)
Loot Price: R379
Discovery Miles 3 790
You Save: R53
(12%)
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From the Belly of My Beauty (Paperback)
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List price R432
Loot Price R379
Discovery Miles 3 790
You Save R53 (12%)
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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If it can be said that Native culture is hidden behind the facade
of mainstream America, there is a facet of that culture hidden even
to many Native Americans. One of today's generation of outstanding
Native writers, Esther Belin is an urban Indian. Raised in the
city, she speaks with an entirely different voice from that of her
reservation kindred as she expresses herself on subjects of urban
alienation, racism, sexism, substance abuse, and cultural
estrangement. In this bold new collection of poems, Belin presents
a startling vision of urban California--particularly Los
Angeles--contrasted with Navajo life in the Four Corners region.
She presents aspects of Din, life and history not normally seen by
readers accustomed to accounts written by Navajos brought up on the
reservation. Her work reveals a difference in experience but a
similarity in outlook. Belin's poems put familiar cultural forms in
a new context, as Coyote "struts down east 14th / feeling good /
looking good / feeling the brown." Her character Ruby dramatizes
the gritty reality of a Native woman's life ("I laugh / sit / smoke
a Virginia Slim / and talk to the spirits"). Her use of Dine
language and poignant descriptions of family life will remind some
of Joy Harjo's work, but with every turn of the page, readers will
know that Belin is making her own mark on Native American
literature. "From the Belly of My Beauty" is also a ceremony of
affirmation and renewal for those Native Americans affected by the
Federal Indian Relocation Program of the 1950s and '60s, with its
attempts to "assimilate" them into the American mainstream. They
have survived by remembering who they were and where they came
from. And they have survived so that they might bear witness, as
Esther Belin so powerfully does. Belin holds American culture
accountable for failing to treat its indigenous peoples with
respect, but speaks for the ability of Native culture to survive
and provide hope, even for mixed-blood or urban Indians. She is
living proof that Native culture thrives wherever its people are
found.
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