Digital Story

Diana's Digital Story
Here's my digital story. I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment and look forward to seeing it in the ebook.

Postcards to Columbus - Sherman Alexie

Postcards to Columbus

Sherman Alexie

Beginning at the front door of the White House, travel west
for 500 years, pass through small towns and house fires, ignore
hitchhikers and stranded motorists, until you find yourself
back at the beginning of this journey, this history and country

folded over itself like a Mobius strip. Christopher Columbus
where have you been? Lost between Laramie and San Fransisco
or in the reservation HUD house, building a better mousetrap?
Seymour saw you shooting free throws behind the TribalSchool

in a thunderstorm. Didn't you know lightning strikes the earth
800 times a second? But, Columbus, how could you ever imagine
how often our lives change? Electricity is lightning pretending
to be permanent and when the Indian child pushes the paper clip

into the electrical outlet, it's applied science, insane economics
of supply and demand, the completion of a 20th century circuit.
Christopher Columbus, you are the most successful real estate agent
who ever lived, sold acres and acres of myth, a house built on stilts

above the river salmon travel by genetic memory. Beneath the burden
of 15,000 years my tribe celebrated this country's 200th birthday
by refusing to speak English and we'll honor the 500th anniversary
of your invasion, Columbus, by driving blindfolded cross-country

naming the first tree we destroy America. We'll make the first guardrail
we crash through our national symbol. Our flag will be a white sheet
stained with blood and piss. Columbus, can you hear me over white noise
of your television set? Can you hear the ghost of drums approaching?

Sherman Alexie is a Native American poet & filmmaker. He is also the creator of the film "Smoke Signals", another piece we covered in class. After reading his work and watching the film, I have a greater desire to learn about Native American history and their struggles. The bitterness and resentment that Alexie feels is all over his work. This particular poem is full of sarcasm and derision. As an American child growing up in public education, we are taught that Christopher Columbus is a hero. We are made to believe that he "discovered" this land and made the way for us to be here in this great nation. But from a Native Americans point of view, this is not the case at all. How can he "discover" a land that was already occupied? The Natives were not waiting to be discovered. They were living their lives happily and making use of their resources. 

Throughout this poem, Sherman Alexie mentions well known modern American staples; such as the White House, San Francisco, basketball, and electricity. When I read the first 4 lines, I thought that he was trying to say that Columbus was only concerned for himself. He did not care about the "least of these". (I.e. - "ignore the hitchhikers and stranded motorists") I'm sure that Alexie wishes he had an opportunity to speak to Columbus and tell him how he feels about him. Since he can't, he expresses it sarcastically and in a patronizing way. He wishes that Columbus could come alive after 500 years and see the affects of his "discovery". 

"Christopher Columbus, you are the most successful real estate agent
who ever lived, sold acres and acres of myth, a house built on stilts" - 
This is my favorite line in the poem and one of the most powerful. It encompasses exactly how the Indians feel. They feel cheated. From their perspective, Columbus sold the entire world a huge lie, and they bought it. He sold a house built on stilts. Logically it should not have been able to withstand, but lucky for him, the lie did. 
The anger and hatred that the Indians feel is still very prevalent. 200 years later and they are still feeling it. He vows to honor the 500th year with destruction. His desire to destroy everything that would represent America shows that he is still filled with rage. When I got a bit of a background on Alexie, I discovered that he was an angry man and an alcoholic at one point. Sadly this is not uncommon for Indians. The resentment led some of them to lifestyles of addiction to alcohol and gambling. Regardless of their plight, some of them are still fighting to keep their heritage alive and move forward. Columbus will never know just what he has done. 

Rita Dove - American Smooth

Rita Dove is an African-American poet and author born in Akron, Ohio. Dove served as Poet Laureate from 1993 - 1995; a distinguishable honor that is not awarded to everyone. American Smooth by Rita Dove was published in 2004. It comes from a book of the same title.

American Smooth

We were dancing—it must have

been a foxtrot or a waltz,

something romantic but

requiring restraint,

rise and fall, precise

execution as we moved

into the next song without

stopping, two chests heaving

above a seven-league

stride—such perfect agony,

one learns to smile through,

ecstatic mimicry

being the sine qua non

of American Smooth.

And because I was distracted

by the effort of

keeping my frame

(the leftward lean, head turned

just enough to gaze out

past your ear and always

smiling, smiling),

I didn’t notice

how still you’d become until

we had done it

(for two measures?

four?)—achieved flight,

that swift and serene

magnificence,

before the earth

remembered who we were

and brought us down. 

I think it's important to note that Rita and her husband are ballroom dancers. This gives you a better idea of why she wrote this piece and what it may mean to her. Ballroom dances in general are usually rigid and a bit constricting. They can also be romantic and sensual. When I heard Rita read this poem out loud in a video, I heard the rise and fall in her tone. She does this purposely to reflect the rise and fall in the dance that she talks about in line 5. The way that she reads it matches the words perfectly. 

Dove does a great job of expressing what it's like to take on a foxtrot or waltz. She mentions the restraint, control, and forceful smile that you have to put on even though you're so focused on the steps. They can't even look at each other face to face in this dance. Their eyes are gazing past each others ears. Her emphasis on "always smiling, smiling" sounds like she is trying to emphasize the need she feels to put on a facade and act like things are easy and perfect. It hides everything that is actually going on in her mind.  It's easy to get so caught up in all of this thinking that you lose sight of everything else and really feeling the dance. I think that this could be a representation of relationships. When you're trying to do everything right, and be the perfect partner, you may forget to just enjoy the person. In the 10th line from the bottom, Rita mentions how she didn't even notice her partner after a while and how still he'd become. Eventually they achieved flight and were on a "high", until they got brought down to reality. This could also be symbolic in relationships.

I also think it's important to know that Dove's husband is a caucasian German man. Being a bi-racial couple is still considered strange to some people, and I'm sure that they have experienced some opposition. From this perspective, the last few lines could be about them being in love and enjoying each other, but somehow people try to bring them down and get in the way.