Notes on Poems, Shō No. 3

Sage Ravenwood on “Leonard Peltier’s Plea for Clemency,” pp. 10:

Leonard Peltier is a Native American man of Lakota and Dakota descent, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe. To many despite tribe affiliations he is a hero; to the FBI he’s a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) convicted of two counts of first- degree murder in the deaths of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in a June 26, 1975, shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He’s never denied taking part in the shooting but denies killing the two agents. Inconsistent proof—withheld and falsified evidence, and witness tampering have long backed his claims. Many of the original witnesses have recanted their statements claiming they were coerced and threatened. He’s spent the last 46 years of 47 in maximum security prison. Leonard Peltier has been eligible for parole since 1993. Among those who advocated for his release are Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, and the 14th Dalai Lama.

The Sioux/Lakota language dispersed throughout “Leonard Peltier’s Plea for Clemency” is loosely based around the Ghost Dance and song. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) eventually banned the Ghost Dance, because the government believed it was a precursor to renewed Native American militancy and violent rebellion. The dance calls down our ancestors and speaks of renewed hope. It felt fitting to include it in Leonard’s plea. Below are the translations.

The following lines are sung during the ghost dance. This is only a partial of one song and not the only one. This particular one speaks of a son being returned to his people.

“Crown Shyness” and “But what about the carpenter ant,” pp. 36 and 37, is part of an epistolary call and response between Megan Merchant & Luke Johnson.

“Mo’yatcun’ne” and “Sikyatki” by Jennifer Reeser, pp. 38 and 39:

Mo’yatcun’ne means “Falling Star” in the Zuni language and is the name of a Zuni tribal member credited with preserving traditional songs and dances. Sikyátki, which means “Yellow House” in the Hopi language, is an archeological site and former Hopi village inhabited by the Kokop clan from the 14th to 17th century. According to oral tradition, it was burned and its population exterminated by the neighboring village of Wálpi when a villager from Sikyátki cut off the head of a sister of a man from Wálpi who had offended him. An 1895 excavation uncovered well-preserved ceramic shards, sparking the Sikyátki revival in polychrome pottery.

Andrew Schelling on “Cold Stone Wheel” and “Far to the South a River,” pp. 42 and 44: What is known for certain of Vidyā? She might have lived as early as 3rd or 4th century, or late as the 8th. Of the thirty muktaka, “stand-alone lyrics,” ascribed to her, two praise, another spits on a warlord who might be her lover. Her eye took in mountain settlements, village gardens, and riparian groves. Her landscapes reach south into Kerala—she speaks of Murala River—and north to Himalayan outflows like the Yamuna.

In Vidyā’s day poets often responded to poems with another poem. That’s what I did here. It seems Vidyā and I have been swapping muktakas for forty years—about love, science, human trouble, glacial outflows, & the planet’s ecologies. Her poems appear in Vidyākara’s 12th century Subhāṣita-ratna-kośa, an anthology I keep close to hand. Vidyākara’s own copy was luckily photographed in the 1930s in Tibet. Nobody has seen it since.