MARGO TAMEZ
PROMETEO
Latinoamerican Poetry Magazine
No 81-82. July 2008.
MARGO TAMEZ
SONG I AM SPEAKING IN APACHE
Yellow eastward
Black from the south
Red west
White upward north
Blue above
Green on the ground / below
Those who have knowledge-understanding
They teach
Four ways-directions
According to thisin this way
Our ancestors
They stood up
They didnt want itrejected it
That they were starved
They are opposed to it:
contamination
conspiracy
(how) they make slaves of you
That they were prisoners inside Apache lands
By means of barbed wire, railroad--
That they were rejected--
And today different kinds of disease
Criss-cross (intersect) our county/reservation/places
And tired, those who are opposed to this
They speak and they reject this
By means of love you stand strong!
I also say this to you
By means of love you stand strong!
thanks Creator!
MARGO TAMEZ Lipan Nde'-Jumano/Suma' Nde' [Apache]-- Scholar. Margo Tamez was born in Austin, Texas in 1962. Activist and poet. Raised in San Antonio, Texas during the Civil Rights Movement and growing up during the Vietnam era made lasting impacts on Tamez' awareness of and responses to racism, gender inequity, and social in-justice. She completed two undergraduate degrees: Archaeological Studies (1984) and Art History (1985) at the University of Texas. In 1997 she completed an M.F.A. in Poetry in the Creative Writing Program at Arizona State University. She is widely known for her grass-roots work among traditional indigenous communities working for autonomy and justice against the combined threats of forced assimilation and genocide under colonialist and capitalist structures. Her writing explores experiences of marginalized indigenous groups which go against the myths and romantic notions of bi-national indigenous peoples of the Mexico-U.S. International Boundary (I.B.). In 2003, her first full-length collection of poetry, Naked Wanting, was released. Her book RAVEN EYE (Arizona 2007) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Raven Eye, a poetry collection, is a testimony of internalized racism within North American bi-national indigenous communities, and the thrust of violence perpetrated upon the most vulnerable. The Daughter of Lightning [published as individual essays] is a collection of essays [in progress] relating bi-national Nde' indigenous oral traditions from her mother's and father's families, who are the descendents of survivors of Mexico and U.S. sponsored, militarized and para-military hunt-downs, systemized indenturing and trafficking of Nde' women, children, elders and men. This collection of essays traces these genocide stories and diasporas of the Nde' through the early 18th century to the present.
