“Everything is in the language that we use.”
I thought this unconventional poem represents the senseless dichotomy of mankind’s relationship with language. With self-aware, cold and informative diction Layli Long Soldier draws similarities between the language she uses to write a poem, the language used by the United States government to disenfranchise the Dakota people, and the “language” used by the Dakota 38 during the Sioux Uprising. She purposefully avoids the usual rhythm and structure of what most consider to be crucial to a poem and instead chooses to simply tell a story. For every action made on the behalf of the government, there’s two words; one that actually describes the action, and one that conveniently paraphrases it the same way the government did. Through writing a poem with no rhymes or syllable scheme, she begins to challenge the perceived role language plays into the humanity of our race. At it’s most basic level, is not language supposed to be a reflection of reality? And yet it so often isn’t. And what’s the goal of poetry? It seems to be another reflection of reality but revealed through metaphors and symbolism. Soldier makes it clear how the US government rarely honored language’s tie to reality through lies and deceit. The Dakota 38 refused to allow this. Maybe leaving Andrew Myrick with his mouth full of grass was their way of forcing him to honor his word. I believe in the same way the 38 wished for the base function of language to come to fruition, Soldier avoids the regular poetic flourishments as a way of bringing her words as close as possible to the factual reflection of reality that was the uprising. I believe this re-evaluation of language’s functionality is vitally important for humans who live in a society that’s over flowing with double-speak, misleading nuances, and verbal powerplays. While poetry has its place and time and is beneficial in many ways, what the Dakota 38 understood and what Soldier reveals is that when dishonest language is all that remains in any given institution, maybe all that’s left is action.