Category: Blog

When reading the poem, I felt a great deal of sympathy and pity for the Dakota men who were hanged. I noticed about the language of the poem that it is trying to make the reader feel something towards the Indeginous people. This poem is different from others because it invoked a certain emotion that other poems can’t compare to. I’ve found that poems usually have a problem where they can’t emotionally connect with the reader through the text that well. One poem that I have read that actually compares to this one is Howl by Allen Ginsberg. The sentence “everything is in the language that we use” means that the language that we use to present a story is an important factor in getting a message across. In this case, the language used in the poem is precisely made in order to appeal to my empathy. The particular words that the author decides to use shape the poem into a work of art and makes it more than just words. The Long Soldier wants us to understand the oppression and mistreatment that was swept under the rug and does a good job of this through his use of diction. This poem helped me understand how misshaped history was and what we all learned in school left out many major details. The impact that this poem had on me will stay with me for the rest of my life and I will never forget what happened to those 38 Dakota men that day. 

This poem offers the readers both a lesson on Abraham Lincoln’s downfalls, and a deep insight into the rules and wording of writing. The poem is carefully and well constructed from top to bottom with insights throughout to pinpoint to the readers the main purpose of her work: to show that “everything is in the language that we use”. The author justifies that statement through ways “hidden” throughout the article, and these are a few of my insights into that statement.

What I realize firstly, is her word choices to state her thoughts. In modern language, we only know Minnesota as… Minnesota. However in the poem, she uses prefixes of that word (“Mnisota”) in replacement of the one we know most commonly (“Minnesota”) and continues to use it for the remainder of the poem. (“However, as further consequence, what remained of Dakota territory in Mnisota was dissolved”). To me, this important yet minute detail may be one of the aspects of “everything is in the language that we use”, for we may use any sort of prefix to replace how one states a word or statement, under the condition that it is logically reasonable.

A second, yet broader aspect is the redundancies within the poem. For example: “Why were thirty-eight Dakota men hung?”… is followed by “Why were thirty-eight Dakota men hanged?” These two, in modern language, both make sense. However, to the author, it is the much deeper aspects that differentiates the two. This, to me, also conforms to the statement “everything is in the language that we use”, since like “hang” and “hung” in that sentence, we may use any form of a word to describe something in modern language, with the condition that it is understandable.

I think the author utilized this poem as a convenient and straightforward method to inform the audience about what happened that gave name to Dakota 38. The author uses repetition and short sentences to make sure the audience learn about the Dakota people starving as a cause of the American government. This poem is a bit different from other readings that I have encountered because the author separated each sentence and not put everything in paragraphs. This allowed me to not be overwhelmed by the amount of new information I’m learning about and it helps me stay focused.   The sentences were all key points explaining what happened in the event and not just unimportant details.

There was a meaningful quote that resonated with me. In the poem, it stated “Everything is in the language we use”. I think that Long Soldier meant that the way people convey their messages can influence others into thinking the same way they did. For example, people praised Abraham Lincoln for the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation but did not bring to light what he did, the same week, to the 38 Dakota people. This can influence the public to forget about the event. In textbooks and readings, students know President Lincoln as the man who helped African American slaves, but not many of the students know about the execution of 38 Dakota men. The quote from the poem reflected that if people don’t choose the right words to convey their message, their stories can be forgotten. In the sentence after the quote, the author described the treaty between the Dakota people and the U.S. government that promised the Dakota people money in exchange for their land. The word “treaty” has a positive connotation, however, the Dakota people didn’t receive the payment from the government. Instead, they were contained in a small territory and were unable to purchase food and resources. Long Soldier wanted the audience to learn to interpret the different stories/perspectives on the same event. Everyone’s version of an event is different.

Layli Long Soldier’s Piece “38” Is a tragic yet elegant interaction between the variance of language, in terms of usage and consequence, and the plight of the author’s culture, The Dakota Nation. The poem initiates readers into the setting of dismay, as Long Soldier enumerates the numerous monstrosities committed against the Dakota Nation. At this time Long Soldier is dually reverting back to, and commenting upon, her usage of language in the poem, obsessing over her grammatical accuracy. Long Soldier’s obsession with grammar, plays out as a satire against the English language, which following the same rules, aided in wiping out the Dakota nation via treaties that were worded in trickery and never meant to be followed in the first place.

The second half of Long Soldier’s piece shifts gears from usage of the English language (in regards to Native American culture) and transitions into a place where she can discuss the meaning and implication of language used by the Dakota Nation. For Long Solider, The Dakota Nation’s dialect can be summarized around a central idea that “everything is in the language that we use”. Long Soldier’s first example speaks to the many different meanings of Mnisota, which in English translates to Minnesota, the original territory of The Dakota Nation.

The first example starts out at the surface level, as Long Solider soon delves into the ways in which “action” is also embedded in language. To commemorate the death of 38 Dakota citizens executed during Lincoln’s presidency (depressingly only a few days after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed), modern day citizens of The Dakota Nation ride from South Dakota to the site of the execution in Minnesota where a performance soon follows. Rather than honoring fallen ancestors with words, The Dakota Nation replaces the written word with performance, as a preferred method of language to commemorate an event of unspeakable tragedy.

Long Soldier’s last point is also almost as powerful, as she details a time when a white settler, who believed that starving Native Americans should “eat grass”, was found dead with grass stuffed in his mouth. Shortly afterward, Long Soldier informs readers that “Real poems do not really require real words”. This fits the previous narrative well, as the audience can almost feel the “poetic” justice invoked when visualizing the lifeless trader with grass in his mouth. This is very much language, channeled via the most theatrical of mediums. The substitution of the written word for the sake of action and performance is paramount to the experiences of the Dakota Nation, and to Long Solider, who refuses to conform to a white-washed and “written” representation of language.