INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA · FICTION
Simon J. Ortiz
Also known as: Simon Ortiz
Simon J. Ortiz (born May 27, 1941) is a Native American writer, poet, and enrolled member of the Pueblo of Acoma. Ortiz is one of the key figures in the second wave of what has been called the Native American Renaissance. Ortiz's commitment to preserving and expanding the literary and oral histories of the Acoma people accounts for many of the themes and techniques that compose his work. Ortiz identifies himself less as a "poet" than a "storyteller". The composition of a traditional Pueblo storyteller includes not only oral narrative materials, which adapt easily to short story or essay forms but also songs, chants, winter stories, sacred oral narratives associated with origin stories and their attendant ceremonies.
Many, many years ago, all things came to be.
— from The People Shall Continue
Most acclaimed
Out There Somewhere
In a collage of journal entries, free-verse poems, and renderings of poems in the Acoma language, the renowned Native American poet draws on his life experiences over the past ten years - recalling time spent in academic conferences and writers' colonies, jails and detox centers - to convey something of the personal and cultural history of dislocation.
After and Before the Lightning
The weather--portrayed with vivid imagery--dominates this collection, set on the prairies. In Three Days Before Spring, Snow Again, he writes: "Wind is up again, / swirling and pushing around / like it had nowhere to go, / losing and finding things / and losing them again." By the author of Woven Stone.
Men on the Moon
"When Faustin, the old Acoma, is given his first television set, he considers it a technical wonder, a box full of mystery. What he sees on its screen that first day, however, is even more startling than the television itself: men have landed on the moon. Can this be real?"--BOOK JACKET. "True to Native American tradition, these tales possess the immediacy - and intimacy - of stories conveyed orally. They are drawn from Ortiz's Acoma Pueblo experience but focus on situations common in Native people, whether living on the land or in cities, and on the issues that affect their lives. We meet Jimmo, a young boy learning that his father is being hunted for murder, and Kaiser, the draft refuser who always wears the suit he was given when he left prison. We also meet some curious Anglos: radicals supporting Indian causes, scholars studying Indian ways, and San Francisco hipples who want to become Indians, too."--BOOK JACKET.