Kenny, Maurice - James Ruppert (essay date 1980)
James Ruppert (essay date 1980)
SOURCE: "The Uses of Oral Tradition in Six Contemporary Native American Poets," in American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1980, pp. 87-110.
[An American educator and critic, Ruppert specializes in Native American literature. In the excerpt below, he identifies the stylistic and thematic elements in Kenny's poetry that have been drawn from the Native oral tradition.]
Maurice Kenny, publisher of Strawberry Press and Coeditor of Contact/II, among his many talents has developed a finely-tuned lyric voice. Kenny's background includes a seeking out of the works of Whitman, Williams and Louise Bogan after which he "returned with their teachings to my proper place … home / north." But to their world of things, men and especially nature, Kenny brings an atavistic self. He sees his role not so much as a storyteller, but as a singer of spirit. His song/poems express him as a medium for...
[The entire page is 1429 words long]
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