Song/Poetry and Language--- Expression and Perception

Simon J. Ortiz is a Native American writer and poet who is also a member of the Pueblo of Acoma. Born in 1941, Simon J. Ortiz is currently 83 and is also an Emeritus Professor at Arizona State University (“Simon Ortiz”). Oritz is also considered a key figure of the second wave of the Native American Renaissance as he is committed to the preservation of the literary and oral histories of the Acoma people, a duty that he seemingly inherited from his father who was an elder in the tribe before his passing.

Oritz himself has lived a fairly colorful life, as he details his childhood in which he and his family only spoke Keresan at home. However, when Ortiz entered middle school, he was sent to Santa Fe to attend St. Catherine's Indian School. Disillusioned with the cultural dissonance of St. Catherine's rules, Ortiz began writing and composing stories and poems. While his situation frustrated Ortiz, it did turn him into an insatiable reader (as he just randomly read dictionaries?) with a passion for language.

Eventually, Ortiz transferred to Albuquerque Indian School, where he learned several trades (like plumbing and mechanics). Writing, however, stayed with him, and surprisingly enough, it was Ortiz's father who pushed for him to stay away from manual labor jobs. Ortiz did graduate and worked an odd job or two at the Kerr-McGee uranium plant, which influenced his works once he truly began his writing career.

For his education, Ortiz attended Fort Lewis College in Colorado, where he focused on chemistry. After three years in the Armed Forces, he attended the University of New Mexico, where he focused on literature and creative writing. In terms of his writing, Ortiz was inspired by fellow native authors, and much of his work is the current native circumstances juxtaposed against historical events, alongside various environmental worries, particularly those involved with land developers and uranium exploitation.

According to Ortiz, storytelling and narratives are more than just styles or types of literature. As explained on the Annenberg Learner, Ortiz argues that “The purpose of that story sharing or storytelling is . . . conversing, and the story listeners are conversing with us. We are sharing, or participating. And it’s the storyteller participating by his telling, and the listener participating by his or her listening. So it’s an exchange. It’s a dialogue. It’s an event” (qtd. in “Simon J. Ortiz (b. 1941)”).

Song, as Ortiz was taught by his father, is a way of both expressing and perceiving at the same time. Ortiz defines perception as the relation from outside of a person to inside and expression as the opposite, the relation from inside of a person to outside (407). Therefore, song is an act of relation of outside reality to inner self and of inner self to outer reality simultaneously. One of Ortiz’s central claims follows that a danger, with the English language, is over-restriction, limiting and attempting to define language that should be all-expansive.

Language, for the Acu tribal people is seen in its completeness. A single word is seen as a complete whole, rather than a sum of parts, such as syllables, prefixes, suffixes, sounds, or the like. A word, as Ortiz’s father explains, “with an exasperated—slightly pained—expression on his face… ‘doesn’t break down into anything;” (400).

Beyond the individual words, there is a completeness and interconnectedness to all of reality. As Ortiz posits, song should be “more than just the words and phrases,” but “the context, meaning, purpose—all of these items not in their separate parts but as a whole” (405). A song is composed of the reality within it and the reality that is perceived through it, all within the contexts where it was created and exists. Ortiz adds, “The context has to do not only with your being physically present but it has to do also with the context of the mind, how receptive it is, and that usually means familiarity with the culture in which the song is sung” (403). Cultural context, therefore, is an essential component of understanding the interrelation of reality expressed and perceived through song.

The connectedness of all things is apparent in Ortiz’s reflections on his father.

“He’s very wiry, and his actions are wiry. Smooth, almost tight motions, but like currents in creek water or an oak branch in a mild mountain wind. His face is even formed like that. Rivulets from the sides of his forehead, squints of his eyes, down his angular face and under his jaw” (399).

Even in describing his father, Ortiz emphasizes interconnectedness. His father’s motions and facial appearance mirror natural elements, both part of his father’s reality and known by the culture he exists within, elements of creek water and an oak branch.

Beyond his father’s physical attributes, his father’s very actions are one with his song. His singing mirrors the rhythm of his carving. Ortiz writes, “the song comes from that motion of his carving, his sitting, the sinews in his hands and face and the song itself” (400).

His father’s song is born out of and part of who he is in that moment. The song does not exist apart from the act of carving, the act of sitting, or the aged lines in the curve of his hands and face. Each word and action are complete unto themselves, just as they form a complete interconnected whole as part of the same reality.