This paper examines the linked themes of environmentalism and genocide in the work of Native American poet Linda Hogan. The living conditions under which too many Native Americans have not in fact lived can fairly be called genocidal. These genocidal conditions have an environmental component as well, when one considers the human suffering caused by radioactive wastes found in disproportionate quantities on Native American lands. Paula Gunn Allen has named Hogan as a leading articulator of the theme of genocide that pervades Native American poetry. These poems incorporate a critique of Euro-American colonization and Western cosmologies and philosophies that justify the exploitation of the natural world.
Hogan emphasizes the embeddedness of humans within nature.
In this, her work combines the holistic viewpoint typical of much environmental philosophy with the holistic elements of Native American spirituality. These themes are further explicated in Hogan's novel Mean Spirit in the character of Michael Horse, who writes an environmental gospel to supplement the gaps in the European Bible. Like her character Michael Horse, Hogan emphasizes the need for communication. In her many references to the forced removals of the Chickasaws to Oklahoma in both her poetry and her fiction, Hogan links ritual and historical images of genetic continuance. There is a marked maternal element to these poems of human fertility, but it is important to distinguish between the monumental Earth Mother often featured in ecofeminist writings and the more complex Native American maternal deities informing Hogan's work.