Junkyard Quotes: Week of 2/21/11

I was reading some of Jimmie Durham's poetry over the weekend, and I have some other junkyard quotes from earlier in the week, but I wanted to devote this post to him. I love his phrasing.

1.

"At the festival of remembering the dead, even armadillos and subway victims may dance in the sky."

2.

"Indian people still speak English as a second language, even if we no longer speak our own languages. That is the true meaning of illiteracy in a class society; one is not in control of the language one speaks."

3.

"Looking at old photographs of Geronimo,
I always get the feeling that he was going to shoot
the photographer."

4.

"The Indians of Brazil say that at first the duck
Was afraid of the river, and had a canoe made of clay.
But when the canoe was dissolved and he found
Himself in the river, he discovered he loved it."

5.

There is a drawing by Jimmie Durham in his book Columbus Day of a bird, and the description reads, "A loon calling stars down on his back." It's taken from a line in his poem, "A Woman Gave Me a Red Star to Wear on My Headband." He takes something very abstract and makes a gorgeous phrase out of it, a picture I can clearly see in my head even without the drawing.