Jacklight (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Louise Erdrich
- First Published: 1984
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry, Allegory
- Subjects: Sex or sexuality, Gender roles, Interracial relationships, Native Americans or American Indians, Rites or ceremonies, Hunting or hunters, Animals, Light
“Jacklight,” the opening and title poem in Erdrich's first book of verse, is a haunting dramatization of male-female and of white-Indian relations. The poem begins with an epigraph citing that “the same Chippewa word is used both for flirting and for hunting game,” so that the encounter between hunters and animals enacted in the poem is also an allegory for sexual gamesmanship between men and women. The title refers to an artificial light, such as a flashlight, used in hunting or fishing at night. This detail, along with a number of others, suggests that the poem is also an...
[The entire page is 739 words long]
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