Paula Gunn Allen was a mixed-race writer and scholar who identified primarily as Native American. She is known for her poetry and contributions to literature.
Here is a quote from her book The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions:
America does not seem to remember that it derived its wealth, its values, its food, much of its medicine, and a large part of its "dream" from Native Americans.
This quote addresses an important aspect of American history that is often forgotten, or not addressed enough. She references the idea of the "American Dream" and mentions how much of it comes from the Native Americans.
Hoop Dancer is a rendering of my understanding of the process by which one enters into timelessness—that place where one is whole.
This quote, also from The Sacred Hoop, reflects on her poem "Hoop Dancer," from her collection Life Is a Fatal Disease. I've included the beginning of this poem below:
It's hard to entercircling clockwise and counterclockwise moving noregard for time, metricsirrelevant to this dancewhere pain is the prime numberand soft stepping feetpraise water from the skies . . .
What stands out to me in this quote is the use of alliteration—for example, "circling clockwise and counter clockwise," "soft stepping," and "pain is the prime." I also like the metaphor of "pain is the prime number." The poem ends:
out of time, out oftime, outof time.
The repetition shows the theme of timelessness.
Another poem found in Life Is a Fatal Disease is called "Kopis'taya, a Gathering of Spirits." An excerpt follows:
Even so, the spirit voices are singing,their thoughts are dancing in the dirty air.Their feet touch the cement, the asphaltdelighting, still they weave dreams upon ourshadowed skulls, if we could listen.If we could hear.
In this section of the poem, she uses personification to describe the spirit thoughts as "dancing" and the ground "delighting" in connecting with them. The repetition of the phrase "if we could listen," but with the last word changed to "hear," puts an emphasis on this thought.
http://www.paulagunnallen.net/
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