{"id":1096,"date":"2025-10-27T18:52:30","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T18:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/?p=1096"},"modified":"2025-12-03T14:58:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T14:58:17","slug":"cultural-resilience-through-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/2025\/10\/27\/cultural-resilience-through-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Resilience Through Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-1096-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"361\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/Rabbit-Is-Up-to-Tricks.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/Rabbit-Is-Up-to-Tricks.mp4\">https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/Rabbit-Is-Up-to-Tricks.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Intro<\/strong><br \/>\nThe first Native American poet laureate Joy Harjo serves as a pillar to the preservation of indigenous history through her naturalistic and spiritualistic writing style. As a member of the Muscogee Nation Harjo is able to hone her craft to the recognition of Native history which is often overlooked or misrepresented. Harjo\u2019s Poem, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/texts\/joy-harjo-rabbit-is-up-to-tricks-2008\/\">Rabbit Is Up to Tricks<\/a>\u201d [1] was written in 2004. In the poem she uses the spiritual and folkloric character of the trickster Rabbit to tell a story of colonization and assimilation. The word \u201csurvival\u201d is mentioned throughout various reviews of her work from both the National Poetry Foundation [2] and the Indian Quarterly Review [3]. This is because her poems follow the belief that the only way to truly allow a culture to survive genocide and adversity, is by perpetuating the culture and spirituality of a peoples. Joy Harjo uses Native American folklore, songs, and language to contrast her grief ridden recounting of the genocide and survival of Native Americans.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Text<\/strong><br \/>\nThe poem \u201cRabbit Is Up to Tricks\u201d by Joy Harjo is made up of 37 parable-like lines that tell the narrative of the creation of a \u201cclay man\u201d by the character Rabbit. The Native Languages Organization [4] describes the Rabbit to be a commonly mischievous character in native folklore. Stories like \u201cHow Rabbit Brought Fire to People\u201d [5] involve Rabbit mischievously stealing fire from weasels to warm the<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1103\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1103\" style=\"width: 215px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1103\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/90a86db3b5ed6a31da11cc0cefd401ce2f30dd93-300x200.jpeg\" alt=\"Joy Harjo Sitting\" width=\"215\" height=\"143\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/90a86db3b5ed6a31da11cc0cefd401ce2f30dd93-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/90a86db3b5ed6a31da11cc0cefd401ce2f30dd93-1024x682.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/90a86db3b5ed6a31da11cc0cefd401ce2f30dd93-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/90a86db3b5ed6a31da11cc0cefd401ce2f30dd93-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/90a86db3b5ed6a31da11cc0cefd401ce2f30dd93.jpeg 1940w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 215px) 100vw, 215px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1103\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Poetry Foundation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>rest of the world. Harjo uses the knowledge that Rabbit is a character often associated with children&#8217;s tales to invite readers into her poem. The poem begins with the line, \u201cIn a world long before this one, there was enough for everyone,\u201d Harjo evokes Edin adjacent imagery of an idyllic time before ours, this portrait of perfection is then torn down by what follows, &#8220;until somebody got out of line.\u201d Harjo sets the tone immediately with this rapid shift. The second line feels like a bad premonition for what is to come. The following sequence of events are described as Frankensteinian by Edward Hirsch [6] Rabbit creates a clay man. Lines 10-15 follow a parallel sequence where Rabbit shows the clay man how to steal and the man obeys. Harjo uses parallelism to compare how both the man and the Rabbit feel power in a way that Edward Hirsch describes as &#8220;Bureaucratic.&#8221; [7] The repetition of the sections \u201cHe wanted all\u2026\u201d in lines 19-21 build a palpable physicality to the later described \u201cinsatiable\u201d nature of the clay man. The collecting of these<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0repeated phrases mimic the greed of the clay man to want more. The final lines from 29-37 describe the assimilation of the stories, songs and languages of Native Americans. Rabbit no longer has a home and has only made things worse. He tries to reason with the clay man but only realizes, leading to the devastating button of the poem, \u201cHe\u2019d made a clay man with no ears.\u201d\u00a0 The narrative format of the poem, combined with its parallelism and repetition, all work together to tell the story of how greed and want killed and betrayed an entire culture and its people, while also including culturally significant characters to keep the story embedded in Native American folklore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\nWe get a primary example of the colonial exploitation described in the poem in 15th century New England. According to the NIH NLM Native Peoples Concepts of Health and Illness [8] The explorer John Cabot, amongst other English fishermen, worked together to drain the resource of cod from the regions where the Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, Mi\u2019kmaq, Penobscot, and Maliseet tribes were already living. Not only were these tribes blatantly drained of their most lucrative resource, but they also were being affected by the European deceased that was incredibly fast spreading and deadly. This depletion of stolen vital resources is elaborated upon within Joy Harjo&#8217;s spoken and sung version of the poem in her album <em>Winding Through the Milky Way <\/em>[9]. In the recorded version there are additional lines in between 31-32, 32-33, and 34-35 which emphasize the destruction that the greed of the clay man caused to the environment. In this version the following lines appear in between 29-31 \u201cForests were being mowed down all over the world. The earth was being destroyed to make more, and the Rabbit had no place to play,\u201d the second line was not included in the printed version but adds a hopeless disparity to the line \u201cand Rabbit had no place to play\u201d.\u00a0 The recorded version emphasizes the environmental effects that displacement and genocide have on the Native land. Native Americans have historically been manipulated and exploited to serve the selfish interests of settlers. Decades later in 1920 the Oklahoma based Osage Nation was exploited and<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1107\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1107\" style=\"width: 156px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1107\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/Pawhuska-189x300.jpg\" alt=\"Excerpt from the Jan 27, 1929 edition of the &quot;Evening Star&quot; newspaper. \" width=\"156\" height=\"248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/Pawhuska-189x300.jpg 189w, https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/Pawhuska.jpg 594w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 156px) 100vw, 156px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1107\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Excerpt from the Jan 27,1929 edition of the &#8220;Evening Star&#8221; Newspaper<br \/>(Library of Congress)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>murdered by settlers drawn to the Nations thriving location-based oil resource [10]. National Resources and Environment author Rennard Strickland estimates that 250-300 Osage People were murdered from 1920-1926 [11]. This Period of Osage history is known as the Osage reign of terror [12] and is a devastating example of the corruption and abuse that settlers and corporations &#8211; clay men &#8211; have inflicted upon Native communities. Like the clay man, business officials and politicians whose motives were led by the same insatiable greed mentioned in the poem, caused the grotesque genocide of hundreds of Osage. Joy Harjo uses her poem to reclaim and grieve all that has been selfishly and unjustfully stolen from Native Americans. Her culturally grounded storytelling style reclaims the history of Native Genocide in a way that simultaneously accomplishes to depict the loss and preservation of Native American Culture.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Subtext\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\nIn his book Meaning of Folklore Alan Dundes delves into the idea of \u201cFolklore as a mirror of culture\u201d [13] He talks about how the folklore of a culture \u201creveals the areas of special concern.\u201d within that culture. He elaborates on the idea that folklore is a way in which historians could view a culture from an insider&#8217;s perspective instead of an outsider&#8217;s perspective. With this it&#8217;s understandable that characters like Rabbit would be utilized as a tool to explain the harrowing truth of the forceful relocation and genocide of Native Americans. One of the key<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1106\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1106\" style=\"width: 165px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.readbrightly.com\/books\/9780593484845\/remember-by-joy-harjo-illustrated-by-michaela-goade\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1106\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/9780593484845-7-271x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Image of a bird from the Joy Harjo's children's book\" width=\"165\" height=\"182\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/9780593484845-7-271x300.jpeg 271w, https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/10\/9780593484845-7.jpeg 560w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 165px) 100vw, 165px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1106\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Drawing from Joy Harjo&#8217;s book &#8220;Remember&#8221; (Brightly)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>features about this poem is the fact that it was written with a cohesive narrative. It evokes the form of a children&#8217;s story, it includes a commonly used character, Rabbit, from the stories that Native Americans still share to this day. Edward Hirsch explains \u201cThe rabbit story no longer mimics a tale that you might tell children for their entertainment. It&#8217;s for adults now.\u201d [14] stories are used throughout one&#8217;s entire historical education, we\u2019ve heard stories of war, politics, civilization, and conquering. Joy Harjo uses this story to re-teach children about the genocide of Native Americans. These children have perhaps heard stories like the discovery of America the most. She teaches her audience to un-learn the original narrative they&#8217;ve been fed for their whole lives. She uses the culturally significant character of rabbit as a connection to Native Survival, while also demoting the fictitious narrative built by the leading inaccurate storytellers of this history.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion.<\/strong><br \/>\nJoy Harjo\u2019s poem \u201cRabbit Is Up to Tricks\u201d uses naturalistic and folkloric imagery and characters to ground her recollection of Native American genocide and assimilation. She uses a story-like structure to mimic the folktales that we are familiar with to contrast the devastating true story behind the poem. She utilizes this form to her advantage by using her poem as a means to completing the task of re-writing the common narrative told to both children and adults alike, about the abuses dealt to Native communities. In the recorded spoken and sung version of her poem she places emphasis on the long lasting environmental and cultural effects that settlers have inflicted upon Native communities. Joy Harjo teaches readers the unforgettable truth of Native American history, while ensuring that the linguistic and literary traditions of Native Americans remain as evidence of survival. There is an emphasis to avoid further genocide of Native customs and cultural traditions.<\/p>\n<p>[1] <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Joy Harjo, \u201cRabbit Is Up to Tricks,\u201d 2025, FYS: American History Through Poetry [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/texts\/joy-harjo-rabbit-is-up-to-tricks-2008\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">].<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[2] <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Poetry Foundation, \u201cJoy Harjo,\u201d Poetry Foundation [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poets\/joy-harjo\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">]<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[3] Joy Harjo,<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0and Mary Leen. \u201cAn Art of Saying: Joy Harjo\u2019s Poetry and the Survival of Storytelling.\u201d American Indian Quarterly 19, no. 1 (1995): 1\u201316. [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/1185349\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">]<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[4]<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0Native Languages, \u201cNative American Rabbit Mythology,\u201d Native Languages [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.native-languages.org\/legends-rabbit.htm#google_vignette\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">]<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[5] <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Glenn Welker, \u201cHow Rabbit Brought Fire to The People,\u201d Indigenous Peoples&#8217; Literature, [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.indigenouspeople.net\/howrabbi.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">]<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[6] <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Edward Hirsch, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Heart of American Poetry, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(New York: Library of America, 2022), 443<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[7] <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hirsch, 444 <\/span><\/p>\n<p>[8] <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">NIH NLM, \u201cAD 1503: Foreigners come for cod; carry disease to New England,\u201d Native Voices, Native Peoples&#8217; Concepts of Health and Illness, [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nlm.nih.gov\/nativevoices\/timeline\/175.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">]<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[9] <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Joy Harjo, \u201cRabbit Is up to Tricks,\u201d YouTube 2015. [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=X6QyVpNFSAY&amp;list=RDX6QyVpNFSAY&amp;start_radio=1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">]<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[10] <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jon D. May, \u201cOsage Murders,\u201d Oklahoma Historical Society, [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.okhistory.org\/publications\/enc\/entry.php?entry=OS005\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[11] Rennard Strickland,<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u201cOsage Oil: Mineral Law, Murder, Mayhem, and Manipulation.\u201d Natural Resources &amp; Environment 10, no. 1 (1995): 39\u201343. [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/40923431\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">]<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[12] <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal Bureau of Investigation, \u201cOsage Murders Case,\u201d Federal Bureau of Investigation, [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/history\/famous-cases\/osage-murders-case\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[13] Simon J. Brunner<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, ed. \u201cFolklore as a Mirror of Culture.\u201d In Meaning of Folklore: The Analytical Essays of Alan Dundes, 53\u201366. University Press of Colorado, 2007. [<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/j.ctt4cgrzn.6\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">WEB<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">]<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[14] <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hirsch, 444<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; Intro The first Native American poet laureate Joy Harjo serves as a pillar to the preservation of indigenous history through her naturalistic and spiritualistic writing style. As a member of the Muscogee Nation Harjo is able to hone her craft to the recognition [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5717,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-close-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5717"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1108,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions\/1108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}