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To native news online staff
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Poet and artist Esther Bellin, Dine Navajo, speaks to Native News Online about her recent role as guest editor for the July/August issue of Poetry Magazine, which features a collection of poems dedicated to land grants. Did.
Bellin has been writing poetry for over 30 years, starting in college. She currently teaches at Fort Her Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, as part of the school’s Indigenous Studies program.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What inspired you to use poetry as a vehicle for thoughts, opinions and experiences?
I think the biggest thing about poetry for me is that it’s your own voice. In other words, you don’t have to think about it like you would with traditional writing styles like complete sentences and paragraphs. Poetry grammar is very different. You can create your own structure and your own language.
Some of my favorite poets have embraced the idea that letters on the page and things not on the page can create entirely new contexts for how we communicate and use letters to do so. It’s really about being left out of the conversation.
It spoke to me quite a bit because of my experience as a Native American woman and young girl. They attended school at the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California during her 1950s. I grew up in the Los Angeles area of Southern California and experience an interesting dichotomy every day. For example, here is a Native American family living in an urban center where my parents speak the language at home. We did very cultural things at home, but I was being educated in this truly alien landscape.
Also, from an early age, no one ever had to tell me that what we were learning was excluding my experience—the Native American experience, the indigenous experience. I think it influenced my work.
There is a strong feeling that Native Americans are incapable of writing, or that Native Americans are very reticent and unable to provide a critical thinking perspective, but this is not entirely true. I feel like what was needed was a bridge to actually connect. Poetry allows that, and I felt it was a very good connector for that.
Do you think being a direct descendant of intergenerational trauma in boarding school influences the message you’re trying to convey in your poetry?
Oh that’s a big part. Even before they used the word, it’s so essential: intergenerational trauma. When I went to the University of California, Berkeley, there was a Native American psychologist, Bonnie Duran. She and her husband started with these concepts and ideas about spiritual wounds, which affect our ability to relate to the land we are in and the community in which we are in terms of our identities. I really dug into this idea of identity politics. Much of my art surrounds it.
I have been working very intentionally with my own trauma for at least 15 years. This includes not only western therapy, but tribal healing, my own healing through writing, etc. I worked with an inpatient about 10 years ago. Native American treatment center for substance use. I became a licensed addiction counselor here in Colorado. It was a trauma.
When I was there, I did a lot of art and writing through grief and trauma. Listening to them, it helped me. I am able to talk about these things in a completely tear-free and articulate way not only because I have worked on them, but because I have benefited from the people who have shared their stories with me. I got
I always admit it. I can speak because people have not only prayed for me, but they have shared stories and prayers that have sacrificed, struggled, and benefited from me.
When I teach these ideas to my students, they are not just facts. It’s really hard contextual understanding and you have to take your time to figure it out. I feel like sometimes people overuse the idea of generational trauma and decolonialism and don’t really understand what it is. not here. Just because I have a job doesn’t mean I won’t do more harm, so we need to check.
Have your poems/texts been watered down or changed by an editor?
My experience with it is mostly on my side, on the inside side, and what it means is the “I’m not doing my job good enough” mentality. I think there are quite a few writers who have lost the courage not only to write, but to read aloud to others because of their inner conflict. I see it a lot with young people when I do poetry workshops in reservation schools.
“I have nothing to say, and no one wants to hear it. To me, that’s the biggest thing for Indigenous writers right now.
That’s what I love about poetry. To start with poetry, you can start with silence. It’s part of it, and something is happening there, like that person’s breathing, thinking, formulating, etc., that is not yet ready to really articulate it.
The fact that I was published was just a miracle. I’ve had several conversations with editors about wanting to keep this, editors wanting to change this, wanting to do that, etc. So I think it’s another battle. We are not always conscious of when we will be accepted.
I used to think, “Oh, you’re an expert.” Whatever you think is good is fine.” The world of publishing is a little different these days. I think they are more open. People of color are part of the publishing world, even at big publishers. So they want these voices.
There are still gaps and misinformation about Native American history and experience, and what is available is the smallest representation of what is out there.
What’s the biggest thing you want people to take away from your job?
There’s been a lot of talk about allyship and white privilege over the last few years. It’s about knowing that you have.
Another thing I think is that non-Indians really understand that it is great to be a fan of our work and a collector of our art, to understand our experience. is to A true ally.
Use that power, your privilege, and start talking about change in your community. No matter what side of the spectrum you’re on, don’t just say, “Oh, I have an Indian friend,” but be proactive in their area because of land issues or monument changes, or more inclusively. start to be active.The United States Not Only Has History, It Has Indigenous Peoples
If people like that understand that, I think it will be easier for writers and artists to emerge. So you don’t have to do all this education and explanation. Then I can finally have a conversation with you. I am constantly educating these people about the really basics and how exhausting it is and how unfair it is. I really hope these final three additions of her to the magazine change the scale a bit.
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