0 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
John and Leslie Marmon Silko eventually divorced; in 1976 she returned
to Laguna Pueblo. Through this period Silko was publishing poetry and short
stories. Her first collection of poetry, Laguna Woman, was published in 1974.
Frequently anthologized from this collection are the poems “Prayer to the
Pacific” and “The Time We Climbed Snake Mountain.” Students will find use-
ful connections between themes in these poems and those found in Ceremony.
In “Prayer to the Pacific” Silko invokes connections to Asian peoples—“Thirty
thousand years ago / Indians came riding across the ocean.” She would refer in
Ceremony as well to the theory that American Indians are descendants of Asians
who crossed either the Bering Strait or island-hopped across the Pacific thou-
sands of years ago. In these and other Silko poems, the sense of history resides
in land and water, and humans are only a part of that large sweep. “Slim Man
Canyon” begins, “700 years ago / people were living here / water was running
gently / and the sun was warm / on pumpkin flowers.” Contemporary people
ride through this landscape, “past cliffs with stories and songs / painted on rock
/ 700 years ago.” Highlighting another theme prominent in much of Silko’s
writing, the links between earlier generations and the present are emphasized,
all within a cyclical understanding of history. In these poems as in Ceremony,
contemporary people often appear both as themselves and as avatars of figures
in Pueblo myths and legends.
Ceremony earned Silko widespread praise, including from the “father” of
the Native American Renaissance, N. Scott Momaday, and Western writer
Larry McMurtry. After its publication, a letter of appreciation from Pulitzer
Prize–winning poet James Wright sparked a correspondence which would
continue until his death in 1980. In their letters, which have been collected as
The Delicacy of Strength and Lace: Letters between Leslie Marmon Silko and James
Wright (1986), edited by Anne Wright, they discuss a wide variety of personal
concerns and talk deeply about their writing.
In 1981 Silko received a MacArthur Foundation Award, popularly known as
the “genius” grant, enabling her to quit university teaching and devote most of her
time to her writing career. Also in 1981 Silko’s Storyteller appeared. It is unusual in
format both in the material shape and size of the book (landscape instead of the
typical portrait orientation), and in its combination of family photographs (taken
by her father and by Silko herself ), family history, poems, oral tradition, and
short stories. Among others, it includes the often anthologized “Lullaby,” “Yellow
Woman,” and “Storyteller.” The table of contents appears at the end of the book,
and Silko has said it should be read from the middle outward, in the pattern of
circularity characteristic of Pueblo thought. As with the earlier poetry collection,
students interested in Ceremony may find their understanding of it enhanced by
exploring Storyteller.
Silko’s next novel, Almanac of the Dead, did not appear until 1991. Long, com-
plex, with many characters and a story line moving between ancient Mayan texts
and contemporary drug trafficking, it met with mixed reviews. Given the complex-
ity and length of Almanac, Silko describes Garden in the Dunes (1991) as “a treat” for
readers who braved their way through Almanac. It tells the story of two sisters of the