Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Rachel Stewart
English 451
12/13/16
In every culture storytelling has always been a way to teach a moral, be a warning,
entertain, educate, or as a way to preserve information. In Blood Ties and Brown Liquor by Sean
Hill, and My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz both poets use storytelling of family histories
to convey their haunting, oppression, culture, religion, and self-identity. Sean Hill and Natalie
Diaz allow the reader to be intimately involved with the narrators of these books as they
recounted their family histories through poetry. As Jody Koenig Kellas states, family stories
affect and reflect family culture by communicating who a family is, its norms, its values, its
goals, its identity. The reader is allowed into the family, showing in part a larger part of
African-American, and Native American cultures, not only showing deep oppression in two
different cultures, but also difficult struggles that their narrators are deal with inside their family
dynamics.
Avery Gordon expresses in her book Ghostly Matters, that to be haunted is to be tied to
social and historical effects. In Blood Ties and Brown Liquor by Sean Hill and When My
Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz mark their works with a recurring theme depicting how
family histories can be relentlessly haunting experiences. The haunting transforms, and shapes
some of these characters. Avery Gordon states haunting is also the remain of turmoil This
statement ties to both works of poetry. In Blood Ties & Brown Liquor the characters are haunted
by specific places in the small town of Milledgeville. These place seem to be the continued
oppressors. In My Brother Was an Aztec the characters are tormented by a brother whose drug
addiction is unfailing. In the poem The State House Aflame 1833 by Hill the title positions the
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reader in a specific place and time, beyond that the reader is given a story of a slave named Sam
who ironically saves the state house. The last lines read, The roof the roof the roof is on fire, /
We dont need no water, let the motherfucker burn (20). The italicized parts of the poem seem
to imply the white people speaking, they have no regard for what happens to Sam the slave. After
reading the last lines racial turmoil and oppression feels just as alive in present day as it was in
1833. Throughout the poem Hill uses punctuation, but the last line is free of a period, or
exclamation point, but the statement is clear, racism in the United States is alive and thriving.
of his freedom
Just as freedom for African-Americans today seems to be uncertain and haunting. Haunting
urges us to look, commands us to pay attention. Through this specific place, this history, this
story Hill urges his reader to pay attention. In the poem Formication, the perception that insects
are crawling all over your body, Diaz introduces the reader to the speakers five different
..
Diazs poetic language leaves the reader feeling formicated themselves. In another stanza the
When my brother nods, off, I write it on his arms and face in cursive
Diaz italicizes the word intervention, it holds more weight in this context, the speaker says she
writes in invisible ink, but the image of this word scrawled on the brothers arms and face,
doesnt escape me. The image is as vivid as if I wrote it myself, I picture it on him for the entire
book. Intervention, or the cause for intervention, the substance abuse in this poem is urging to be
looked at, associated with. It is scream to be acknowledge, Diaz disturbs her readers with this
fact not just in this instance, but throughout the entire book.
Humans beings have been using the tradition of narrative storytelling since before
biblical times, one could even say its the stories that make us who we are. Stories are rooted in
culture, as well as religion. Both works of poetry are deeply rooted in culture, which plays a part
in religion. In Blood Ties and Brown Liquor, God and the Lord are heavily mentioned. In When
My Brother Was an Aztec we experience references made to characters in religion such as Jesus.
These stories being told about religion directly relate to the cultures being depicting in the books.
In the article Stories of the South, Stories of Suffering, Stories of God by Melissa Elliott
Griffith she states "Nowhere else have I heard people talk so often of the Lord'What is this
about?' I have been asking myself. And, as I watch their faces and listen to the music of their
words, I realize that in Mississippi when people speak of the Lord, then they are speaking of the
matters that are very important to them." I am not trying to generalize, but it seems Southern
culture is deeply rooted in Christian religion, and Hill displays this but tend to be illustrating a
negative side to this religious outlook. In Hills poems Joe Chappels Foot Log Bottom Blues and
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Words Like Rivers have different men speakers, both are drunk and are directly talking to the
lord. They talk of liquor, love, and their worries. The poems move and sound like blues songs,
and prove a point to how affluent music is to African-American culture. Another example of Hill
using a story to address religion and culture is the poem A Negro Teachers Bible. Of paper they
made themselves / a civilization of letters, footnotes, and lies. (14) These lines express what
important documents are usually put in a bible, and the word lies expresses negativity toward
the Bible itself. The poem goes on fill his tongue with a wasps sting. / A civilization of letters,
footnotes, and lies. (14) The character in the poem is angered, and the repetition of lines in the
poem directs the reader to the importance of the repeated lines. By not naming the man, Hill is
generalizing the character this indicates the prevalence of the bible in African-American culture.
This poem also gives the reader another negative impression of religion for the Bible is holding
the lies. Diaz also correlates religion heavily in her book. Diazs narrator tells the reader
farfetched stories of the characters that are within religions. Diaz narrators seem to constantly
question the role religion plays in their lives. Religion in My Brother Was an Aztec appears
mythological. Based on the book tribal culture is mythological, and heavily rooted in nature. For
example, in the poem If Eve Side-Stealer & Mary Busted-Chest Ruled the World presents as
poem pf questions about the characters in religion. Not only is religion questioned, but also
The poem is hostile towards religion, and delivers vivid imagery to depict traumatic events that
has happened to the people of her culture. It questions the religious roles of Adam, Eve, Gabriel,
and God. The poems stories affect how the reader views culture and within that culture how
religion is viewed. Both Hill and Diaz seem to interpret religion in a slightly negative aspect. The
poems allow the reader to see a new aspect of African-American culture, and Indian culture
based in religion. It allows the reader to question what they assumed about either cultures, and
Family in both Hills work and Diazs is one big central theme. Family is broken down
into individual people, and then we have the self, yet as humans we constantly struggle with self-
identity. Who are we, and how do we define I? This is why family is so important, because
without them there is no I. Without family, no cultural, no background, nothing to tie us,
down, or up, or whichever which way they string us along. The Hills and Diazs books convey
stories of family, expressing the double edge sword on what family is; love, compassion,
devotion, linkage, but also heartbreak, anger, frustration, and devastation. Family is also depicted
stories. The content of family stories often reflects a familys values, culture, and its collective
meanings. (Kellas, 367) Hills poem Hands 1921 gifts the reader with beautiful imagery of the
Silass hands,
of hens eggs
or the red-brown
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of rust on a hoe
like Benjamins
of scuppernongs
on the vine
The poem shows with all the different shades how family is linked, yet that we are different. It
goes on to present us with the future of Silass farewell to Milledgeville as he leaves for the first
time in excitement. The poem continues to convey that we hold on to family linkage, and
hometown ties, but we do carry our own self-identity, and can reach new perspectives with self-
discovery. Diaz writes a similar poem, Of Course She Looked Back it juxtaposes Hills on the
The character in Diaz poem feels as if she is abandoning her linkage. She feels guilty for leaving,
her self-identity so deeply rooted in family, and culture that leaving destroys it all. Once again
Diaz uses brilliant nature images to intensely metaphorically describe this womans home,
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family, and community falling apart without her. Both poems depict that self-identity in fact does
Storytelling has always been an important part of any culture, it is past, it is present, and
it is future. When stories are told we are reflective, teller and reader gain knowledge from this
art. Family plays a huge role in the stories we tell. They are our linkage to the past, and to life.
Our histories, our memories make us the people we are, our families, make up the communities
we come from and the cultures we express. Throughout Blood Ties and Brown Liquor by Sean
Hill, and My Brother was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz the reader is invited through family histories
to experience private aspects and communities that reveal fresh insights on African-American
and Indian cultures that deliver haunting, oppression, religion, and self-identity.
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Works Cited
Diaz, Natalie. When My Brother Was an Aztec. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon, 2012.
Print.
Gordon, Avery. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: U of
Griffith, Melissa Elliott. "Stories of the South, Stories of Suffering, Stories of God." Family
Hill, Sean. Blood Ties & Brown Liquor: Poems. Athens: U of Georgia, 2008. Print.
Kellas, Jody Koenig. "Family Ties: Communicating Identity Through Jointly Told Family
Stories This Paper Is Based on the Author's Dissertation Study and Was Presented on the
Top Four Panel of the Family Communication Division at the National Communication