Resistance in Luci Tapahonso's "A Radiant Curve": The Application of European Poetic Form to Navajo Storytelling

Elements of defiance in the face of traditionally European ideals and practices are evident throughout Luci Tapahonso’s 2008 A Radiant Curve, most notably in her use of French- and Italian-based forms for many of her poems. Her use of the sestina and villanelle to tell various stories about her family and, on a larger scale, the Navajo people, exhibits the strength of her culture’s storytelling tradition and its ability to resound through any medium. Furthermore, the author’s non-linear structure and integration of the genres of both prose and poetry allow for a well-rounded narrative that contains not only Tapahonso’s own story but also an emphasis on the history of her people. Though each of the prose narratives within the segmented, episodic structure of A Radiant Curve offers hints of resistance to loss of cultural and individual identity, it is Tapahonso’s use of European poetic forms in a series of Navajo-specific stories that truly shows her determination to preserve Navajo culture in a changing world.

A Radiant Curve is made up of 29 individual stories that may initially feel like incomplete fragments to readers more accustomed to the traditional linear narrative of much Western literature. However, the stories, in both prose and verse form, eventually come together to a culmination of themes and images that provides a new understanding of the Navajo culture that feels, ultimately, satisfying and complete. Tapahonso achieves this effect of a larger story made up of many smaller stories from different voices by incorporated various genres throughout the text. The individual stories themselves seem to form a pattern in terms of genre; This lends itself to a sense of wholeness and an evenly-weighted collection of stories in which no single piece feels arbitrary. A Radiant Curve is made up of sections of long-form prose (sometimes considered the “short story” form), prose poems, free-verse poems of varying lengths, sestina and villanelle poems, and an interspersed series of very short poems (all within six or seven lines) that are focused on the Navajo creation myths and the cultural codes derived from these parables. Furthermore, while these very short poems share a specific focus on the passing on of morals, traditions, and instructions, the sections written in the other genres are far more narrative, delivering more contemporary stories of the Navajo people in the present day.

Tapahonso’s integration of different forms and genres, as well as her incorporation of traditional, long-established mythical narratives with more recent stories specific to her family and culture, create a sense of “many voices” throughout the collection of stories. This effect brings to mind the importance of oral traditions and storytelling in many Native American cultures, the author’s Navajo background included. That Tapahonso has cast the atmosphere of word-of-mouth and oral storytelling over a written work speaks to her talent as well as her intentions, as a modern-day Navajo in a position of influence, to preserve all aspects of her culture by making them accessible to a wider demographic.

The author’s use of the sestina and villanelle in particular – two traditionally French- and Italian-based forms that seem to have little historic connection to traditional Native American means of storytelling – establishes her application of Navajo stories to European forms as a means of resistance to the notion of the “dying Native cultures.” In “Tools of Self Definition,” Caskey Russell expands upon James Ruppert’s point that, “since Indian writers are bicultural...they can utilize the best of both cultures in an act of mediation and present a positive image of American Indians even though they may deal with tragic subject matter” (38). Russell quotes Ruppert as he elaborates on the concept of mediation: “[Mediation is] an artistic and conceptual standpoint, constantly flexible, which uses the epistemological frameworks of American Indian and Western cultural traditions to illuminate and enrich each other.” Throughout A Radiant Curve, Tapahonso certainly takes the liberty of using the European poetic forms, as Caskey Russell says, “on [her] own terms.”

 

Tapahonso scatters sestinas and villanelles throughout her collection of stories, evenly combining these European forms with other forms – like the prose poem, which is perhaps more inherently true to the Native tradition of oral storytelling. The poems written in the sestina form are: “Old Salt Woman,” “The Holy Twins,” “The Canyon Was Serene,” “Red Star Quilt,” “Dawn Boy,” and “Tsilii.” These fall on pages 23, 31, 51, 64, 73, and 79, respectively, falling in frequent intervals in an even dispersion throughout the collection. The collection’s only villanelle poem is “Near-to-the-Water” and comes at the tail-end of the series of sestinas, on page 71.

The first sestina, “Old Salt Woman,” retells one of the original Navajo creation myths, and the next sestina, “The Holy Twins,” tells another, though this time it is more obscure, layered beneath a personal narrative. The third and fourth sestinas shift focus to more contemporary, day-in-the-life stories, both of which could be potentially be considered autobiographical to Tapahonso’s experiences, but simultaneously could be coming from different voices – or at least different points of the narrator’s life, or from different states of mind. Regardless, the positioning of these presumably present-day stories after an introduction into Navajo creation myths allows readers to apply long-standing parables and morals to modern day situations and to see, with close analysis of these stories, that history often repeats itself and that many cultural values are timeless and applicable to a wide array of circumstances. The sestina progression is now interrupted by A Radiant Curve’s sole villanelle, and then followed by two more sestinas, the first of which is, predictably, the creation story of Dawn Bay and the next, in accordance with the established pattern, a return to the personal narrative.

The sestina, also called the sextain, is a rigidly structured poetic form that consists of six six-line stanzas and concludes in a tercet to make up a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words is used to end the lines of each six-line stanza, albeit in a different order each time. (The sequence throughout the poem is as follows: 615243, then 364125, then 532614, then 451362, and finally 246531, though the last sequence must fit within three lines rather than six, so three of the six “refrain” words must fall in the middle of the lines.) Though the sestina – due to its high level of structuring – does put heavy restrictions on the creative process and the final product, writing in such a restrictive form also benefits the poet by forcing him or her to examine the subject matter in a new light. Finding a new way to communicate a specific message or theme, aside from affirming the poet’s talent and expertise and thereby establishing a certain degree of credibility in the narrative voice, also promotes the idea that the traditions within the stories, though age-old, remain applicable to this day.

The sestina form finds its origins in 12th century France, where it was written largely in iambic pentameter. Throughout the centuries, however, poets have applied their own stylistic preferences to the traditional sestina form and today, though the sestina is still widely used, the use of iambic pentameter within its rigid structure is less prevalent and allows room for creative liberty. In “Sestina! Or, The Fact of the Idea of Form,” Stephen Burt explains that “the sestina has served, traditionally, as a complaint...Contemporary artists...use sestinas to lament their diminished or foreclosed hopes for their art” (219). He goes on to say, on page 220, “At their best, [recent sestinas] meditate on the limits and frustrations of any model of poetry based in technique or in entertainment, and they complain that no other model fits.”

A closer analysis of both “The Holy Twins,” a creation myth-focus within a present-day story, and “Red Star Quilt,” a shocking personal narrative – the former located towards the beginning of A Radiant Curve and the latter coming much later in the progression of various genres and the stories they tell – will provide a deeper understanding of Tapahonso’s use of the European poetic form and the notion of resistance therein.

In “The Holy Twins” on pages 31 and 32, the six words that repeat throughout the poem are (either exactly, or in creative variations of the original): deep, inscribe, die, (rib) cage, bruise, and figure. The poem’s structure relies heavily on the use of enjambment to allow the sequence of six words to fall at the end of stanza lines. However, it is the variations on the original words – for example, the use of “describe” in the third and final stanzas in place of the original “inscribe” – that truly highlights the poet’s creativity and adds points of focus and heightened interest throughout the poem. Furthermore, Tapahonso has made a slight adjustment to the traditional sestina form by ending on the words “the Holy Twins” (of course, a return to the poem’s title), rather than on one of the six words the sestina sequence dictates.

The story the poem tells has to do with the deep sorrows of childhood and also the hopeful perseverance that comes with age and an evolved understanding of these times of youthful grief. The poem, on its narrative surface, tells of the death of an entire neighborhood full of dogs that fell victim to rabies, and the mourning process of those left behind (particularly the children, who seemed most deeply impacted by the events). Reading the last word of each line alone would leave readers with a general understanding of the poem’s tone: Word choices like “die,” “deep,” “bruise,” and “cage” echo the inevitable pains of the “loss and love” mentioned in the poem’s closing line.