Historical Context
Native-American History: 1960s–1970s
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, numerous marginalized groups in America, including African Americans and women, protested against economic and social injustices, demanding better representation. This era was marked by idealism and youthful fervor, with many believing that a fair future for everyone was attainable. However, by the mid-1970s, Americans had grown cynical, largely due to the setbacks in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal.
During the period when Ortiz was crafting the poems for Going for the Rain (1976), Native Americans were actively resisting centuries of oppression by the U.S. government. Most Native Americans lived on underfunded reservations, having lost much of their land and cultural traditions to European settlers over several centuries. In 1969, a group of Native American activists occupied the deserted Alcatraz Island, near San Francisco, for a year and a half. Their demand was to establish a cultural and educational center for Native Americans on the island, which had previously housed a federal prison.
In 1972, another group of activists organized a march to Washington, D.C., aiming to highlight the numerous treaties between the U.S. government and various Native-American tribes that had been violated. They named this protest “The Trail of Broken Treaties,” referencing the forced relocation of the Cherokee people from the eastern United States in 1838–1839, known as “The Trail of Tears.” Upon reaching Washington, they occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices for a week.
A more radical faction, the American Indian Movement, took over the village of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973 to protest what they viewed as government collaboration with corrupt tribal leaders. After a 71-day standoff, the federal government agreed to talks with the activists but refused to reopen treaty discussions. Two AIM leaders, Russell Means and Dennis Banks, were arrested and charged for their involvement in the siege. These actions inspired Native Americans nationwide to challenge the federal government, with many tribes pursuing legal action to reclaim land and enforce treaties. For instance, the Sioux filed a lawsuit to recover 1.3 million acres in the Black Hills of South Dakota, while the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes in Maine secured a $37 million settlement from the U.S. government.
Native American Publishing
In the 1960s and 1970s, numerous Native American writers received widespread recognition for their work. Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969 with his novel House Made of Dawn. In 1971, Ortiz released a chapbook titled Naked in the Wind, followed by Going for the Rain (1976) and A Good Journey (1977). That same year, Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko published her acclaimed debut novel, Ceremony. Other significant novels from this era include Blackfeet writer James Welch’s Winter in the Blood (1974) and Riding the Earthboy 40 (1976).
In the coming decades, a significant number of Native American poets and fiction writers found an audience for their work. Among the most notable are poets Joy Harjo, of the Muskogee Creek Nation; Adrian Louis, from the Paiute tribe; and acclaimed novelist Sherman Alexie, who belongs to the Coeur d’Alene tribe.
Writing in the late 1980s in I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers, Ortiz himself observes:
It has been just over two decades since Indian writers started to write and publish extensively, and we are increasingly doing so; our path is forward. . . . we persist and insist on living, believing, hoping, loving, speaking, and writing as Indians.
Style and Technique
The poem "My Father’s Song" is crafted as a straightforward first-person narrative reflecting on a childhood memory. It is composed of five stanzas that vary in length. The language is casual and conversational, with punctuation...
(This entire section contains 176 words.)
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serving to indicate pauses and stops.
The poem is bookended by the opening lines, “Wanting to say things, / I miss my father tonight,” and the final stanza, which starts with “I remember. . .” and concludes with “and my father saying things.” In the intervening stanzas, memories unfold, each bringing a tangible aspect to life, such as “the soft damp sand,” “the soft moist sand,” and “a sand moist clod.”
The initial stanza evokes a physical memory of the sound emerging from his father’s “thin chest.” The second stanza recalls the specific task of planting corn. The memory becomes more vivid in the third stanza with the discovery of a nest of mice. The fourth stanza sharpens the focus on the memory with the presence of “tiny pink animals.” The final stanza ties this memory back to the father’s voice.
Compare and Contrast
1970s: The unemployment rate among Native Americans is ten times higher than the national average, with 40 percent of the Native American population living below the poverty line.
Today: Half of the Native American workforce is still without jobs, and nearly one-third live in poverty, compared to 13 percent of the overall U.S. population.
1970s: The life expectancy for Native Americans is only 44 years, which is one-third less than the average American lifespan.
Today: The life expectancy for Native Americans has shown little to no improvement.
1970s: The American Indian Movement brings together urban Indians, traditionalists, and youth to march the “Trail of Broken Treaties’’ to Washington, D.C. They seize and occupy the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices in Washington, D.C., for a week to highlight Indian grievances.
Today: Many Native Americans continue to have a strained relationship with the BIA, which manages Indian affairs. They argue that the BIA limits their freedom and maintains a paternalistic approach towards Native Americans.
Adaptations
In 1993, Audio Literature based in Berkeley, California, launched an audiocassette titled A Circle of Nations: Voices and Visions of American Indians, featuring readings by Ortiz and Joy Harjo from their writings.
Bibliography
Sources
Baxter, Andrea-Bess, Review of “Woven Stone,” in Western American Literature, Vol. XXVIII, No. 2, August 1993, pp. 162–63.
Bruchac, Joseph, Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets, Sun Tracks and University of Arizona Press, 1987, pp. 211–29.
Coltelli, Laura, “Simon Ortiz,” in Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak, University of Nebraska Press, 1990, p. 104.
Gingerich, Willard, “The Old Voices of Acoma: Simon Ortiz’s Mythic Indigenism,” in Southwest Review, Vol. 64, No. 1, Winter 1979, pp. 18–30.
Hobson, Geary, Review of “A Good Journey,” in Western American Literature, Vol. XIV, No. 1, May 1979, pp. 87–89.
Jaffe, Harold, “Speaking Memory,” in Nation, Vol. 234, No. 13, April 3, 1982, pp. 406–08.
Kroeber, Karl, Review of “Howbah Indians,” in Western American Literature, Vol. XIII, No. 3, November 1978, pp. 280–81.
Kuzma, Greg, “The Catastrophe of Creative Writing,” in Poetry, No. 148, 1986, p. 349.
Meredith, Howard, Book Reviews, in World Literature Today, Vol. 72, No. 3, Summer 1998, p. 665.
Ortiz, Simon, Going for the Rain, Harper & Row, 1976.
Ortiz, Simon, ed., Speaking for the Generations: Native Writers on Writing, University of Arizona Press, 1998.
Peters, Robert, Hunting the Snark, Paragon House, 1989.
Schein, Marie M., “Simon Ortiz,” in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 120: American Poets Since World War II, Third Series, edited by R. S. Gwynn, Gale Research, 1992, pp. 231–34.
Swann, Brian, and Arnold Krupat, eds., I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers, University of Nebraska Press, 1987, pp. 185–94.
Further Reading
Allen, Paula Gunn, ed., Studies in American Indian Literature: Critical Essays and Course Designs, Modern Language Association of America, 1983. Allen presents insightful essays on Native-American authors and includes tips for designing literature courses on this subject. Sample syllabi are provided.
Niatum, Duane, ed., Harper’s Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry, Harper, 1988. This anthology features over 350 pages of poetry from prominent Native-American poets, including contributions from Ortiz.
Smith, Paul Chaat, and Robert Allen Warrior, Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, New Press, 1996. This captivating collection of documents covers the turbulent period from 1969, when the American Indian Movement occupied Alcatraz Island, to 1973, when AIM supporters resisted federal agents for eight weeks at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
Wiget, Andrew, Simon Ortiz, Boise State University Press, 1986. Wiget’s critical biography is essential for those studying Ortiz’s works. This accessible study links Ortiz’s life and writings, offering insightful analyses of individual stories and poems.
