From Pulitzer Prize-winning author (House Made of Dawn in 1969), Oklahoma Centennial State Poet Laureate and acclaimed Kiowa artist N. Scott Momaday comes a vibrant collection of more than 100 new and selected poems, The Death of Sitting Bear.
Presented in three parts, some poems are quick tributes to natural phenomena ("It was full of angry sound/ It was not, but its fury was visible," from "This Morning the Whirling Wind"), but no less impactful for their brevity. Simple moments--a childhood recollection of the sound of fry bread sizzling--are exquisitely detailed. The poet explores complex questions about the nature of animals and humans, and their meanings and representations to each other. God, as an entity, as a spirit, as in nature, is called upon. Other pieces are long-form poetic narratives, such as Part II, "A Century of Impressions," which describes an era in a "one hundred haiku/ elemental exercise/ to nourish the mind." The title poem, "The Death of Sitting Bear," gives voice to the great man himself in stanzas of poetic prose, paying tribute to the elite Kaitsenko warrior's life and death.
Firmly steeped in Kiowa heritage and indigenous oral storytelling traditions, Momaday breathes in the spirit of the Southwest and breathes out masterful imagery onto the page. The poems beg to be read aloud in order to savor the taste of the language, each word carefully chosen to evoke shape, sound, sight, feeling and history with the weight of its intention: "a blackbird holds still/ in the center of sight/ and I cannot/ look away." --BrocheAroe Fabian, owner, River Dog Book Co.