In
this sixth collection of stories and verse, award-winning writer Luci
Tapahonso finds sacredness in everyday life. Viewing a sunset in a
desert sky, listening to her granddaughter recount how she spent her
day, or visiting her mother after her father's passing, she finds
traces of her own memories, along with echoes of the voices of her
Navajo ancestors.
The collection includes an audio CD of the author reading aloud from
the book as well and her own voice is warm and inviting, like the
“simmering soup and blue corn meal” of her
childhood. These
engaging words draw us into a workaday world that, magically but never
surprisingly, has room for the Diyin Dine’é (the
Holy
People), Old Salt Woman, and Dawn Boy. When she describes her
grandson’s First Laugh Ceremony—explaining that it
was
originally performed for White Shell Girl, who grew up to be Changing
Woman—her account enriches us and we long to hear more.
Tapahonso weaves the Navajo language into her work like she weaves
“the first four rows of black yarn” into a rug she
is
making “for my little grandson, who inherited my
father’s
name: Hastiin Tsétah Naaki
Bísóí.” As
readers, we find that we too are surrounded by silent comfort, held
lovingly in the confident hands of an accomplished writer who has a
great deal to tell us about life.
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A Radiant Curve
Poems and Stories
by Luci Tapahonso
University of Arizona Press,
2008
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a copy
Reviewed in The Nature Pages
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