A Study Guide for Simon Ortiz's "Speaking"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Simon Ortiz's "Speaking," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535833929

Book preview

14

Speaking

Simon J. Ortiz

1977

Introduction

Speaking is a poem by Simon J. Ortiz in which a father acquaints his infant son with nature. The poem is understood to be about Ortiz himself and his son, Raho Nez, on the Acoma land in New Mexico. In a few lines, Ortiz manages to evoke Native ways and a traditional tribal worldview.

Ortiz is well known as one of the pioneers of the Native American Renaissance which began in the 1960s. Around then, many Native Americans began using their traditions as a basis for writing modern literature in English. Unlike other well-known writers of this literary movement who have come from mixed heritageincluding N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, Paula Gunn Allen, and Louise Erdrich—Ortiz is a full-blooded member of the Acoma Pueblo tribe and grew up speaking his people's native tongue, Keres. He became best known for his poetry, especially the early volumes Going for the Rain (1976) and A Good Journey (1977), the latter of which contains Speaking. Ortiz has also published collections of short stories, has been a journalist and college professor, and has edited anthologies of Native American authors. He is respected for his political prose and activism as well as his poetry and fiction. In addition to A Good Journey, Speaking can be found in Ortiz's collected volume Woven Stone (1992) and the anthology Bridges: Literature across Cultures (1994).

Author Biography

Simon Joseph Ortiz was born to Joe L. and Mamie Toribio Ortiz at Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, the ancestral place of his people, on May 27, 1941. He was the fourth of eight children and the first son. His father and grandfather were keepers of the traditional Acoma tribal knowledge, and Simon grew up with a respect for tradition, speaking their native Keres, or Keresan, language. He went to day school in the nearby community of McCartys and then attended St. Catherine's Indian School, in Santa Fe, where he became interested in reading and kept a journal. He went to high school at the Albuquerque Indian School but finished at Grants High School. Thinking he would