Where Clouds are Formed (Sun Tracks)
Many of Zepeda’s poems are about language, which is no surprise, for she is a distinguished Tohono O’odham (Papago) linguist. In poem after poem, she invokes realities that her language expresses but English resists. Sometimes, she uses Tohono O’odham words, as in Music Mountains, in which she lists the ancient names of the mountains of Arizona, describing how the mountains themselves respond: We must speak with voices / in songs, rhythmic speeches, orations, and prayer. . . . That is the way of mountains / This is what they want to hear. In one of the most moving poems, Zepeda describes how she lacks a birth certificate because my parents are illiterate in the English language. . . . they speak a language much too civil for writing, a language useful for praying with the earth and sky. The connection between religion and language runs throughout the poems, as does the linkage between the land’s features and the Tohono O’odham tongue. Miraculously, Zepeda makes us hear echoes of her language through English—no small poetic feat. --Patricia Monaghan--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.