Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Kenny, Maurice - Maurice Kenny (essay date February 1986)
Kenny, Maurice - Maurice Kenny (essay date February 1986)
Maurice Kenny (essay date February 1986)
SOURCE: A prelude to Between Two Rivers: Selected Poems 1956–1984, White Pine Press, 1987, pp. 1-5.
An excerpt from "Yaikini"
A soft breeze brought a bug into her bucket, a lady-bug fell into her fruit.
"Lady-bug, Lady-bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children are alone. Lady-bug. Lady-bug, fly away home. Lady-bug, Lady-bug, your house is on fire, your children alone. Lady, Lady. Lady, Lady-bug …" She couldn't remember the entire rhyme. She chanted over and over, "Lady-bug, Lady-bug," hoping the rest of the words would follow. She worked herself into an anger so vicious she began pounding the air with her fists. Clenched hammers, the rolled hands struck the air, and the vines, the ground, her own chest.
"Ma! Ma, you alright?"
The women picking further away now in the wide meadow looked up from work.
"Ma, answer me. You...
[The entire page is 2654 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
- Introduction
- Principal Works
-
Criticism
- Paula Gunn Allen (essay date 1978)
- James Ruppert (essay date 1980)
- Carolyn D. Scott (essay date Winter 1983)
- Joseph Bruchac (review date September 1984)
- Edward Butscher (review date March-April 1985)
- Maurice Kenny (essay date February 1986)
- Daniela Gioseffi (review date April 1987)
- Robert L. Berner (review date Autumn 1988)
- Maurice Kenny (essay date Winter 1989)
- Publishers Weekly (review date 11 May 1990)
- Robert L. Berner (review date Winter 1991)
- Robert L. Berner (review date Spring 1992)
- Maurice Kenny (essay date March 1992)
- Lisa A. Mitten (review date 1 February 1993)
- Robert L. Berner (review date Summer 1993)
- Craig S. Womack (essay date 1994)
- Copyright
