"Sometimes I Feel Like All Indians" by Chrystos
A Poem from the Menominee poet, poet, feminist and activist
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Yesterday I tutored for the second time a student enrolled in an ecofeminism class at Wilbur Wright College. During our first session, she was shocked that I was familiar with women and gender studies and ecofeminism in particular. I told her about my pursuit of a second master's degree that focused on women’s and gender studies, and that while my research interests center on sexual violence, autobiography and feminist disability studies, I am familiar with ecofeminism. She said she felt she received a two for one deal because I not only worked with her on her writing but deepened her understanding of ecofeminism.
Our next session focused on her creative project that required her to write a haiku and a stream-of-consciousness poem made up of 20 lines. Along with working on her incorporating the five senses into her imagery and developing her emerging drafts with simile and metaphor, we once again discussed ecofeminism.
Working with my student brought me back to my first semester in the M.A. program in women and gender students at DePaul University. My first professor was the brilliant and kind Dr. Heather Montes Ireland. She chose This Bridge Called My Back edited by the feminist and writing legends Cheríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa. This book is where I learned of of the poet and activist Chrystos.
Though I was older than the majority of my graduate cohorts, I am embarassed to say that I had not known of Chrystos before or had read her work. Yet I am not shocked that I was not familiar with her poetry or social justice work. When I studied English in high school, I read zero Native American authors. For my undergraduate degree, I only was assigned Leslie Marmon Silko. Later as I earned my MFA in Writing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I was exposed to the work of Black, Hispanic and Latinx fiction writers but the only Native American writer I had been assigned was now my fellow Substack author Sherman Alexie.
Her lyrics’ elegance and the power found in the stark truths of her experiences and imagery humbled me as a writer and feminist. I read more of her poetry in the months and years after my class with Dr. Montes Ireland. One poem that rocked me is “Sometimes I Feel Like All Indians.”
The tension rises with each line and bears out how truth and violence consume all our lives during our daily routines but especially the life of Indigenous women in the Americas who have a higher rate of being murdered or going missing in the U.S. and Canada than the overall population.
“Sometimes I Feel Like All Indians” by Chrystos
For Kelly Morgan
ever do is die
Her brother was thrown out the window
by Black men he was drinking with
His cousin was stabbed near the store
She got shot
Nobody knows where he ended up
She hasn’t heard from her brother in 17 years
He killed himself when his wife left
Her son was hit by a car of drunk whites
Her uncle went off a cliff in the dark
Her grandmother died in the hospital
because they gave her the wrong medicine
Her baby was born addicted & died
My brother died as a baby
Her mother died of an overdose
She doesn’t know how her mother died
but no one has seen her for a long time
She was put in foster care because her parents died in a car wreck
I close my eyes & keep praying
sometimes there’s nothing to do
but brush back the tears
& keep on folding the laundry