The Groundbreaking Poetry of “mother” by m.s. RedCherries https://southernreviewofbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/mother-m.s.-cherries.png
m.s. RedCherries’ mother is a groundbreaking collection in the ever-evolving and increasingly visible realm of Indigenous literature. In its pages, the poem and essay forms blend and melt, creating a linguistic and sensory experience that bends time, place, memory, and space. Simultaneously, mother’s speaker reignites the storytelling tradition for an entirely new generation of readers. These poems celebrate family and family lore and collage together the communities who live in profound questioning about what it means to be Indigenous in America.
“to [fall] and to give” is a careful introduction to the speaker’s relationship not only with their mother, but also with America. They describe their mother as being “born into a place crumbled between worlds” where “White people wanted to be Indians and Indians wanted to be left alone.” The speaker relies on direct, minimal description, and the politics, conflicts, and complexities are subtly alluded to. During the poem’s Vietnam War-era setting, the Indigenous populations “sought return, in some way / or another, to their traditional ways.” The speaker also acknowledges that their mother was “the proudest and bravest Indian I knew.” The mother becomes a forceful entity, setting an example of confidence and bravery in adversity’s face not only for the speaker, but also for the speaker’s family, and for other Indigenous people looking to reclaim their identity.
A similar sentiment regarding the reclamation of one’s Indigenous identity occurs in “america never looked for us.” The opening line—“I forget my name and it turns me gold”—establishes a sense of assimilation. An italicized third stanza centers the poem:
can you dream in color
if you were not born in color?
The repetition of the word “color” at the lines’ ends, as well as the interrogative structure and italics, create the sense of disruption and interruption. Whoever asks the question asks for verification of the speaker’s legitimacy as a person and, moreover, an Indigenous person. The speaker’s response is bold:
you once told me we could never separate
being Native from
the original.
The lack of capitalization throughout the poem, but particularly of the words surrounding “Native,” is the not only the speaker’s means of verifying their legitimacy. It is also an act of reclaiming their identity in a society requiring conformity and assimilation. The poem ends with the italicized line “you’re in america now.” The line is less a confirmation and more of a demand, a continued denial of Indigenous existence. Eerily, the line is also reminiscent of white supremacist rhetoric that uses similar verbiage to attack and belittle immigrant and Indigenous groups. The line’s duality is haunting and frightening, a reality check for those readers who have never endured such taunting.
The same questioning about Indigenous identity in America occurs in “red is the only color I see.” In it, the speaker points out the superficial Indigenous identity American ideology imposes on native peoples:
blood men can
do better if i can
be as Indian
as you let me be.
The speaker implies that because of white society’s expectations of assimilation, as well as white society’s lack of understanding about Indigenous cultures, Indigenous peoples can only “be as Indian” as society allows them to. The superficiality is reinforced as the speaker reflects “if you let me braid / my hair it does not / mean I know how / to braid my hair.” It is as though a single act is supposed to define the speaker’s identity, but, as the speaker acknowledges, a single, small act cannot entirely encompass a person’s—or a culture’s—entirety. The speaker’s criticism of America in this poem echoes the criticism that appears in other poems. The speaker attempts to strip America of this agency by not capitalizing it: “america takes / and peels away.” The speaker personifies America as an abuser, an entity that possesses the ability to take and peel away “all we know / we are.” Strengthening the concept of stripping away one’s identity are the two final, jumbled lines which may leave readers rather confused: “FELT FEELING ABUNDANCE in some other when / in the big open when.” The ending is garbled, almost frantic, and this frantic tone mimics the panic and confusion one might experience when they are restricted in embracing their true self.
Other poems in m.s. RedCherries’ collection stab subtly at white society’s capitalistic and private ownership endeavors. Indigenous practices emphasize that land is not an entity to be owned. One of the collection’s untitled poems (“my god has many lovers”) depicts how the US government historically, and currently, reduced Indigenous populations to be merely a number on paperwork. The speaker depicts receiving “official u.s. / government mail from the department of the interior.” They fear that their citizenship was “revoked for being Indian.” Instead, they discover that the government is informing them that they “now own .1478589 acres” in Montana “along with the .577363 acres” in Oklahoma. The poem’s shape also helps inform the poem’s message. Its seven lines appear in the shape of what readers can interpret as a box, an envelope, or even a plot of land. Its rigidity implies that, as an Indigenous person, the government and white society expect the speaker to remain within the boundaries of the boxes, the envelopes, and the plots of land the government and society establish. The rigid form also suggests that there is no room for negotiation or deviation.
mother arrives at a pivotal, critical time in American current events, especially as states like Oklahoma reexamine their violent and complex relationships with Indigenous peoples. m.s. RedCherries’ verses reminder that America’s acknowledgement of tribal sovereignty still has significant progress to make. In its careful, personal dissection of the social and political landscapes which uplift some and oppress others, mother is also an exploration of the many paths one can take to not only discover and find themselves, but also to find their way home.
POETRY mother m.s. RedCherries
Penguin Books
Published July 16, 2024
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