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Four Mountain Wolves | Introduction

"Four Mountain Wolves" is an excellent example of the work that has emerged from the recent "Native American Literary Renaissance." Silko, along with Louise Erdrich, N. Scott Momaday, Gerald Vizenor, and others, is a representative figure of this renaissance, in which the writers meld Western and Native American literary techniques, themes, and subject matter. Silko's poem, which originally appeared in the anthology Voices of the Rainbow: Contemporary Native American Poetry (1975), immerses the reader into nature. In the wintry mountains of New Mexico, the narrator of the poem watches four different wolves, each representing different aspects of the natural and spiritual world, travel from the northeast. The poem combines a modernist-influenced free verse structure with a quiet, almost chant-like feel. Silko's Laguna Pueblo heritage comes out both in the form and the content of the poem, but the poem is not only interesting for its "Native Americanness": it is a poem that beautifully evokes a natural setting and gives us a close, almost frightening, but still respectful perspective on an animal that has always represented fear and threat to humans.

Four Mountain Wolves Summary

Section 1
In the first section of the poem the narrator is observing a "gray mist wolf who is travelling to the southwest "over deep snow crust." We hear a howl, "Ah ouoo," but are not sure whether it is the howl of the wolf or of the narrator. The wolf treks through the fog and the cold. "All the deer have gone," the narrator tells us, and the "wild turkey" are "all flown away." This wolf is looking for food.

Section 2
The second section of the poem shows us a "swirling snow wolf." This wolf is not hungry like its predecessor; rather, he is an image of cosmic violence, "spill [ing] the yellow-eyed wind / on blue lake stars / Orion / Saturn." The narrator characterizes this wolf with very violent imagery,... ยป Complete Four Mountain Wolves Summary