[Review of] William Oandasan. A Branch of California Redwood

• Main Author: Roemer, Kenneth M.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: VCU Scholars Compass 1984
• Subjects: book review; Race and Ethnicity; Indian; anishina*
• Online Access: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/ess/vol4/iss1/41; https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1135&context=ess

One of the best ways to introduce readers to the diversity of Indian literatures (and, by implication, Indian experiences) is to expose them to poetry written in English by Indians. One-dimensional stereotypes about Nobel Savages simply cannot withstand the rich variety of a literature that extends at least back to the 19th-century attempts of a few Indian poets-such as William Wilson (Anishinabe), Emily Pauline Johnson (Mohawk), and Alexander Posey (Creek)-to imitate and modify English language poetic models up through the recent poems of hundreds of Indian writers whose backgrounds and poetic inclinations reflect numerous tribal, reservation, and urban experiences, as well as literary influences ranging from tribal chants and Japanese syllabic verse to 20th-century experiments with open verse and typography.