{"id":326,"date":"2017-02-01T14:31:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T19:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/?p=326"},"modified":"2017-02-01T14:31:37","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T19:31:37","slug":"interview-poet-leanne-howe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/2017\/02\/interview-poet-leanne-howe\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Poet LeAnne Howe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It is our great pleasure to be hosting poet, essayist, scholar, and more, LeAnne Howe, for our next Writers in the Library Reading Series Event! You can find out more at our website<\/a> or on our Facebook<\/a> or Twitter<\/a> pages!<\/p>\n

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Jeremy Reed:<\/strong> We often think of writers as poets, playwrights, novelists, or essayists. We don’t often think of a writer as all of those things at once, and yet your writing incorporates multiple genres often. How do you think\u00a0the process of working in multiple genres has affected your creative life?<\/em><\/p>\n

LeAnne Howe:<\/strong> You left out scholar. I also produce literary scholarship in my field, Native American literatures.\u00a0 Hubris made me say this, forgive me<\/em>.\u00a0 But to answer your question, I truly never think about what kind of work belongs in a certain genre. I\u2019m more comfortable letting the work choose how it wants to be experienced in the world. Sounds a bit wacky, but that\u2019s how I work.\u00a0 I start out writing what I think will be a poem and it turns into drama and fiction.\u00a0 That\u2019s how Savage Conversations<\/em> was born; it began as poetry, now it\u2019s a drama for the stage, and at the same time it\u2019s poetry.<\/p>\n

My literary ancestry began with the stories my grandmother and great aunts told at family gatherings. \u00a0Storytelling came first.\u00a0 I was also a journalist for several years, so literary scholarship seemed a reasonable creative move.\u00a0 My career has been a Tribalography, my term, for the way American Indians tell stories (in multiple genres).\u00a0 And one thing leads to another.<\/p>\n

The affect of writing in multiple genres is that I manage to stay busy.\u00a0 At this time, I\u2019m working on a new documentary film, Searching For Sequoyah<\/em>. The website is now up\u00a0 http:\/\/searchingforsequoyah.com\/<\/a>. This summer in Toronto, Canada we go into rehearsals for a new play I\u2019m co-authoring with Monique Mojica, Sideshow Freaks and Circus Injuns<\/em>.\u00a0 We are performers in the show.\u00a0 Monique is a wonderful actress, teacher, and playwright.\u00a0 We also have many Native collaborators from the Southeastern tribes. \u00a0The show is scheduled to open on August 24, 2017.\u00a0 I\u2019m also finishing a novel this semester.\u00a0 Again, the affect on my creative life is that I am busy, but I don\u2019t think this is much different than most artists.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

JR:<\/strong> In addition to writing as much as you do, you’re the Eidson Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia.\u00a0How does teaching relate to your writing life?<\/em><\/p>\n

LH:<\/strong> I\u2019m very fortunate.\u00a0 Teaching and research are a creative symbiosis for me.\u00a0 My teaching is fueled by my research interests.\u00a0 And vice versa.<\/p>\n

JR:<\/strong>\u00a0You’re known as a writer who writes humor exceptionally well. What do you think the role of humor is in writing today?<\/em><\/p>\n

LH:\u00a0<\/strong>Humor disarms the reader, disarms an audience.\u00a0 I use it to help readers enter a Native story without feeling guilty about the genocide that was enacted against our ancestors, our tribe, and families. \u00a0And I\u2019ve always wanted to be thought of as a female Will Rogers pointing out ironies and absurdities for a bilious public.\u00a0\u00a0 Hubris made me say this, forgive me<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

JR:<\/strong>\u00a0Your most recent book,\u00a0Choctalking on Other Realities, concerns your experiences traveling the world and representing American and Native identities abroad. In that collection, you write: “Native stories are power.”\u00a0Yet, too frequently, Native writers are left out of conversations\u00a0about\u00a0contemporary American literature. What recent Native writers’ works do you admire and wish had a wider audience? \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

LH:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019m very interested in the work of Tommy Pico, a Native poet. I\u2019m reading IRL<\/em>, his first book of poetry.\u00a0 But really, I could name 57 Native writers and most people will never have heard of them, or read their work. \u00a0Perhaps it is our invisibility in the literary world.\u00a0 Recently I was talking to a group of people about Louise Erdrich\u2019s work.\u00a0 They\u2019d never heard of her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

JR:<\/strong>\u00a0Your newest project,\u00a0Savage Conversations, centers around Mary Todd Lincoln’s claims that a “savage indian” would torture her each night while she was in an insane asylum in 1875. How has\u00a0writing about this topic affected\u00a0your concern regarding how Native stories are represented in American history?<\/em><\/p>\n

LH:\u00a0<\/strong>We\u2019re not represented at all.\u00a0 We get about a paragraph (so to speak) in U.S. student\u2019s K-12 education and we\u2019re represented as past tense, dead.\u00a0 All gone.\u00a0 Alas.<\/p>\n

Historians and authors interested in the Lincolns knew about the period in Mary Todd Lincoln\u2019s life in which she blamed an Indian spirit for her madness.\u00a0 But they ignored it.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 This is the question I asked when I began researching Mary Todd Lincoln.\u00a0 It felt very much like the 1995 case of Susan Smith from South Carolina who blamed a black man for kidnapping her children.\u00a0 People may remember that Smith killed her children then claimed a black man drove off with them in her car.\u00a0 Both women blamed the \u201cOther\u201d for their insanity.\u00a0 The \u201cwhy\u201d question is something I try and answer in the book.<\/p>\n

Working on Savage Conversations<\/em> has given me insights into how a President\u2019s wife in 1875 imagined American Indians.\u00a0 She imagined us as savages.\u00a0 It helped me consider that perhaps Abraham Lincoln thought Dakota Indians were savages. \u00a0He ordered the execution of thirty-eight Dakota Indians for participation in the so-called Dakota Uprising in 1862 in Minnesota.\u00a0 I don\u2019t agree that just because he spared the lives of over 200 other Dakotas that this is an indication of mercy, or that he saw them as human beings.\u00a0 That\u2019s not what he says.<\/p>\n

Come hear LeAnne Howe\u00a0read from Choctalking on Other Realities<\/em>\u00a0Monday, February 6th\u00a0in the Hodges Library Auditorium at 7PM<\/a>. We look forward to seeing you there!<\/p>\n

__<\/p>\n

LeAnne Howe<\/strong>, the Eidson Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia, connects literature, Indigenous knowledge, Native histories, and expressive cultures in her work. Her interests include Native and indigenous literatures, performance studies, film, and Indigeneity. Professor Howe (Choctaw) is the recipient of a United States Artists (USA) Ford Fellowship, Lifetime Achievement Award by the Native Writers\u2019 Circle of the Americas, American Book Award, and an Oklahoma Book Award, and she was a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar to Jordan. In October 2015, Howe received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association, (WLA); and in 2014 she received the Modern Languages Association inaugural Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages for Choctalking on Other Realities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeremy Michael Reed<\/strong> is a PhD student in Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee. His poems are published in\u00a0Public Pool<\/i>,\u00a0Still<\/i>,\u00a0Valparaiso Poetry Review<\/i>, and elsewhere. More of his work can be found\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is our great pleasure to be hosting poet, essayist, scholar, and more, LeAnne Howe, for our next Writers in the Library Reading Series Event! You can find out more at our website or on our Facebook or Twitter pages!   Jeremy Reed: We often think of writers as poets, playwrights, novelists, or essayists. We … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[27,28,6,25,24,29,26,21,7,30],"yoast_head":"\nInterview with Poet LeAnne Howe - Writers in the Library - Libraries: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"googlebot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"bingbot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/2017\/02\/interview-poet-leanne-howe\/\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/\",\"name\":\"Writers in the Library\",\"description\":\"Libraries: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/2017\/02\/interview-poet-leanne-howe\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/files\/16387354_1252866974790570_1616223176740128126_n-300x113.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/2017\/02\/interview-poet-leanne-howe\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/2017\/02\/interview-poet-leanne-howe\/\",\"name\":\"Interview with Poet LeAnne Howe - Writers in the Library - Libraries: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/2017\/02\/interview-poet-leanne-howe\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-02-01T19:31:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-02-01T19:31:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/#\/schema\/person\/742e348ed4e974dda55f05ae3b7695eb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/2017\/02\/interview-poet-leanne-howe\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":[\"Person\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/#\/schema\/person\/742e348ed4e974dda55f05ae3b7695eb\",\"name\":\"Erin Elizabeth Smith\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330,"href":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.lib.utk.edu\/writers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}