“Outcasts and Dreamers in the Cities”: Urbanity and Pollution in Dead Voices

• Published in: PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America
• Main Author: Gamber, John Blair
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Modern Language Association (MLA) 2007
• Subjects: Indian; anishina*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2007.122.1.179; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S003081290010032X

Dead Voices: Natural Agonies in the New World , by the Anishinabe author Gerald Vizenor, shows how people can come to form a profound relationship to a place even in sites of (in this case, American Indian) displacement and relocation. I argue that Vizenor's text reflects a complete formation of an urban community in its reclamation of landfills and sewers as integral and religiously significant human spaces that must not be ignored. The community in this novel is not only multicultural but also interspecies, as Native ties to physical place and plant and animal species are reinforced. Moreover, I show the importance of this portrayal of urban community and belonging in a Native context, considering that over two-thirds of all Native people in the United States live in urban settings.