american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
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EQUIVOCAL AGENCY 107<br />
out, <strong>the</strong> lion has a connection to Africa as well as to Yeats’s “rough beast<br />
slouch<strong>in</strong>g toward Bethlehem” <strong>in</strong> “The Second Com<strong>in</strong>g” (305). And,<br />
lest we forget, <strong>the</strong> lion is popularly known as <strong>the</strong> k<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>the</strong> jungle, and<br />
s<strong>in</strong>ce Bob Marley’s “Concrete Jungle” (1970) urban ghettoes have<br />
often been referred to popularly as “jungles.” Lev<strong>in</strong>e’s “Lion,” <strong>the</strong>n, is<br />
an imag<strong>in</strong>ary construct embody<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> rage of Detroit’s African<br />
American community and <strong>the</strong> guilt of a middle-class white man. The<br />
voice of <strong>the</strong> poem reflects <strong>the</strong>se divided concerns.<br />
Like “They Feed They Lion,” a collective experience of oppression<br />
is <strong>the</strong> central tenet of Sherman Alexie’s “Evolution” (The Bus<strong>in</strong>ess of<br />
Fancydanc<strong>in</strong>g 1991). However, unlike Lev<strong>in</strong>e, Alexie, a Spokane/<br />
Coeur d’Alene Indian, uses a narrative voice <strong>in</strong>fused with parody and<br />
satire <strong>in</strong> order to cast <strong>the</strong> contemporary Indian reservation as a space<br />
controlled by <strong>the</strong> malicious forces of colonialism. In “Evolution,”<br />
Alexie’s rhetorical strategy departs from Native American oral traditions,<br />
while foreground<strong>in</strong>g elements of magic realism. He has said<br />
that his work “has noth<strong>in</strong>g to do with <strong>the</strong> oral tradition” because he<br />
“typed it” (“Sherman Alexie” 14), a claim that strikes me as protest<strong>in</strong>g<br />
too much and as a dismissal of <strong>the</strong> historical and cultural forces<br />
that shape all writers. In contrast, John Newton writes that Alexie<br />
“stresses <strong>in</strong>stead his own easy affiliation” with popular culture and <strong>the</strong><br />
culture of <strong>the</strong> contemporary reservation (414), spaces that are hybrid,<br />
dynamic, and multicultural, and that are impacted by a variety of<br />
traditions, both oral and written, from which Alexie liberally borrows.<br />
Alexie sketches <strong>the</strong> contemporary reservation <strong>in</strong> “Evolution” as a<br />
surreal comb<strong>in</strong>ation of popular culture, supernatural occurrences, and<br />
what Jennifer Gillan has called “<strong>the</strong> structural elements of <strong>the</strong> representation<br />
of Indianness—<strong>the</strong> Indian as savage or child” (103) or, <strong>in</strong><br />
“Evolution,” as savage, childlike alcoholic. These representations of<br />
what it means to be an Indian from a stereotypically conservative white<br />
perspective, moreover, “are central to <strong>the</strong> narrative of <strong>the</strong> United<br />
States as a nation” (Gillan 103–104) <strong>in</strong> that <strong>the</strong> purity, thrift<strong>in</strong>ess, and<br />
Protestant work ethic of white America had a foil <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> supposed laz<strong>in</strong>ess,<br />
savagery, and chemical dependence of <strong>the</strong> Indian. In “Evolution,”<br />
moreover, <strong>the</strong> union of a supernatural world and a rational one <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
techniques of magic realism offers an alternative vision to <strong>the</strong> sterile,<br />
stagnant, and oppressive white, Western ethos, and it complicates <strong>the</strong><br />
relationship between popular and Indian cultures. In do<strong>in</strong>g so, it<br />
mocks <strong>the</strong> supposedly evolutionary superiority of whites to Indians,<br />
and shows that oppression is not a historical condition, but a present<br />
fact of life. The poem thus foregrounds William Faulkner’s famous<br />
quote: “<strong>the</strong> past isn’t dead; it isn’t even past.” 16