It’s not very often that a reader can be confused by a piece of writing before he or she even reads the first word. However, with Sherman Alexie’s poem, The Powwow at the End of the World, that was exactly my case. The very first word of the title, Powwow, was one that already gave me difficulty. One reason for this is because I barely knew, if even at all, what a powwow was. The word has been tossed around in conversation, used to describe a get-together, or even used to mock a group of people hanging out, yet its true meaning or purpose was not common knowledge to me. Another reason is that I have no experience with powwow’s, or any native american traditions or celebrations. I come from an upper-middle class Polish family in Naperville, Illinois, and even though my state of residence is named after a native american tribe, that is the extent of my knowledge about it.
After filling in the gap regarding my knowledge of powwows, (it is either a sacred ceremony with singing and dancing, or a term for conference or a meeting with discussion), I began reading. After an initial read of the poem, the first thing that stood out to me most was how Alexie starts each sentence with “I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall…” I originally took this as the author succumbing to the requests of his audience, that he should forgive those who have wronged him. I interpreted the ones asking for forgiveness as the whites who stole land from the Natives, which invalidated my conclusion that Alexie was giving in to the requests of the audience.
Alexie follows the first person statement at the beginning of each sentence with a detail that is very unlikely to occur. For instance, he mentions he shall forgive “after an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Dam and topples it.” While I have no knowledge of how strong or large the Grand Coulee Dam might be, I had difficulty interpreting this due to my conceived notion that this entire poem revolved around forgiveness. I thought this poem served almost as an olive branch, or an idea that forgiveness is inevitable even in response to the great evils committed against Native Americans. Quite frankly, that perspective was ignorant. Alexie contrasts his forgiveness with an action that is nearly impossible to occur, such as a single woman toppling an entire dam, in order to show that it will take more than asking for forgiveness to actually forgive.
Alexie continues the pattern of the first half of each sentence while continuing to contrast it with more imagery and unlikely scenarios. However, while the image of a woman attempting to destroy a dam is rather self-explanatory, other descriptions were harder to understand. Alexie makes numerous references to the land and rivers, stating he shall forgive “after the flood waters…cause all of it to rise…” soon followed by, “after that salmon swims upstream, through the mouth of the Columbia and then past the flooded cities, broken dams and abandoned reactors…” After my first read, I missed that this was a chain reaction of events. One woman toppling a dam causes all of the other events that Alexie describes, each becoming less tangible and more surreal. I became frustrated that I could not comprehend why Alexie would build off each event with an even harder event to analyze, but it speaks to the depth of the poem. I realized that the speaker of the poem is undoing all the injustices levied against Native Americans. The dams that once contained their rivers are toppled, the fish that once could not swim upstream are free, and the cities and reactors that plagued the Natives’ lands were now wiped out. This is when I realized that the poem was not at all about a willingness to forgive, but rather forgiveness only when wrongs are undone. In this case, Alexie references extremes to show how unwilling he is to simply forget the horrors that those are asking him to forget.
At the end of the poem, Alexie shifts his focus to how the world will be after these evils are undone. Following his repeated first half of each sentence, he mentions that the salmon bring three stories: one of how to pray, one to make them laugh, and one to give them a reason to dance. This further complicated the poem for me because of how drastically different its tone is from the beginning of the piece. Alexie started by mentioning that forgiveness will come after the destruction of that which inhibits Native Americans and their culture, but now the speaker seems almost hopeful. I also didn’t understand the reference to the salmon bringing these three gifts, but after a quick search, it turns out that salmon are sacred in Spokane culture, seen as immortal, and bring gifts. (Was it cheating to search for that? I don’t think so.)
Lastly, Alexie’s last sentence at the end of the poem states “I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall when I am dancing with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world.” While his sentence makes it rather clear that there will be no forgiveness until the lives and land of these Natives are returned to how they were before, as a reader I am left questioning Alexie’s choice to end the poem this way. He broke the tone of the second half of the poem by mentioning that this powwow will happen “at the end of the world.” This reference usually implies destruction and the ceasure of all society, and would fit with the author’s attitudes at the beginning of the piece, rather than after detailing the three gifts of the salmon and the reunification of his people.
Overall, my main sources of difficulty with this poem came from a lack of knowledge regarding a culture as well as a heavy bias towards my first-read interpretation. As a reader, it was interesting to see how I limited my understanding of a poem just because I did not pick up on certain aspects or ideas during my initial reading. This is something that I have long struggled with, and in the world of timed writings and timed assessments, my brain tries to run with the first idea that comes to mind, rather than taking the time to break a piece down and work through its difficulties. While I struggled to understand Sherman Alexie’s Powwow at the End of the World, as a reader I will continue to work line by line to notice poetic devices and techniques that lead the way to understanding and meaning.
