Angels don’t come around here.

“Angels don’t come to the reservation.

Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things.

Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing—

death. And death”

This quote is the start of a strong poem. A poem that not only represents the social identity of the speaker and the return to the body of the speaker. This poem is a “return to the body” in the way that it gives the speaker freedom to fully inhabit their body without societal norms making them feel like they have no place in it. This poem reflects the personal and cultural struggle for acceptance that Native Americans face in America; it reflects the struggles that Native Americans have to exist in their own body in America. The quote itself is talking about how “angels” don’t come to the reservation, only dead things visit. When I first read this I thought the speaker was talking about how holy things don’t come to the reservation. As I read on, I quickly found out that  was not correct. The poem goes on to say 

“Everyone knows angels are white. Quit bothering with angels, I say. They’re no good for Indians.”

It was at this line that I realized what the speaker was talking about when she said “They all mean the same thing—death.” It was so painfully obvious that the speaker was talking about the despicable relationship of Native Americans and their colonizers. The “angels” are no good, especially for those who don’t look like them and are seen as barbaric as the Native Americans were.

“Remember what happened last time some white god came floating across the ocean? – You better hope you never see angels on the rez. If you do, they’ll be marching you off to Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they’ve mapped out for us.”

In this quote the speaker is referring to the trail of tears that the Natives walked due to being forced by Americans. This whole poem tells the story that the natives have with white people. This poem is a “return to the body” for the speaker due to her being able to completely be herself in it. She is able to tell the story of caution that white people caused. Able to talk about how they first came as “saviors” but soon turned out to be the devil, the cause of genocide for her people. 

-Paris Baker

Justice Waiting to be Served

Natalie Diaz’s work, “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation,” illustrates the harsh treatment and injustices that Native Americans faced during their forced assimilation into white culture. With the use of irony, symbolism, and a sarcastic, yet serious tone evoking a range of different intensive emotions, the speaker is able to share her/his perspective of the social and racial situations Native Americans have and had to go through, spreading the word to others who may not even know of these issues, finally allowing those long-hushed social identities to be heard.

Diaz’s poem is an abecedarian poem. It consists of 26 lines and starts with a word beginning with the word ‘Angel’ and ending with the last line beginning with the word ‘Zion’ just like the ABC’s. She used this poem structure as a crafty way to specify the social injustices Native Americans experience. How though? Along with the poem’s structure, she includes irony and symbolism regarding ‘angels’ (Diaz, Line 1) “whites’ (Diaz, Line 20) and ‘death’ (Diaz, Line 4). She sarcastically states that “everyone knows angels are white”. Though this is quite a very strong generalization, her point was to demonstrate how ironic it was that the white, Christian people considered themselves as “saviors” and “civilized” while they forced their Catholic and Christian beliefs upon the Native Americans in a very inhumane, grotesque way, killing many. That completely takes away the idea of hope, faith, and salvation, what resulted is genocide and death. This is how angels connect back to death in Diaz’s poem. The speaker mentioned, “Angels don’t come to the reservation. Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things. Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing—death.” (Diaz, Line 1-3)

In Catholicism (from personal knowledge being in the religion myself), angels are perceived as “guardians” and “protectors from evils”. The natives were forced to believe that their saviors were the white men. They were forced to believe that they were the savages whereas those who were white and Christian were civilized and there to save them. But then, where were those “angels” when thousands of indigenous people were being killed, raped, assaulted, and oppressed? Again, angels are seen as these helpful spiritual beings, but instead of getting help, Native Americans got tortured, suffering and their land stolen. With that combination of irony and symbolism regarding “angels”, “death” and “white men” the speaker managed to demonstrate the oppression Native Americans had to endure. This is something that is still being fought to this day. With a cautionary tone, the speaker ends the poem with, “You better hope you never see angels on the rez. If you do, they’ll be marching you off to Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they’ve mapped out for us.” (Diaz, Line 32-35) This imposes the fact that the social issues Native Americans went through centuries ago are issues that are still currently happening. The speaker is referring to a “You” from the looks of it, she/he is speaking to those who are in the reservations, this is what she means with, “If you do, they’ll be marching you off to Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they’ve mapped out for us.” I believe that the first-person-point of view makes it easier for Diaz to reach out to a certain audience. The personal narrative provides a deeper understanding of what the speaker’s thoughts or feelings were about the issues being touched upon. From the tone of voice and feelings given by the speaker, I thought the main audience were those silenced Native Americans. In some way, the speaker is trying to be persuasive. By reaching out in a first-person point of view and mentioning “us”, there’s a sense of inclusion. When I read the last line of the poem, I felt like the message was, “Hey you’re not alone, keep your head up!” I’m sure this is the type of message would be considered motivational or positive to the indiginious people who have suffered greatly while living in these reservations.

Overall, with the publication of this poem, Natalie Diaz surely managed to speak for perhaps hundreds or thousands of Native Americans, who are currently in these reservations by frustratingly expressing her opinions and thoughts on the whole context of the Indigenous constantly going through cultural, social, and racial brutalities and unfairness. This is how the poem accommodates social identities that have been marginalized or silenced.

Angels? Not To Us

Throughout history, and even throughout the art in time, angels have alway been depicted as being white, and to this day it is rare to see an angel that is depicted as being a person of color. In the poem Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Reservation by Natalie Diaz, she uses a metaphor to compare the white men and the angels, she explains how an “angel” in its literal definition, “a spiritual being believed to act as an attendant, agent, or messenger of God, conventionally represented in human form with wings and a long robe,” has never grazed the path of a Native tribe. Instead of Natives seeing that spiritual being that is supposed to represent all these great things they got colonizers who came and ruined their society, took away their freedom, and tried to abolish their culture and take everything they had built from them.

Diaz uses the structure of an Abecedarian poem, a poem that follows the alphabetical pattern (A, B, C…) in this case taking every line of the poem and having it follow the alphabet, to write the message of how these “Angels” have come and marginalized the Natives if her tribe. In the interview “Back to the Body: An Interview with Natalie Diaz” she emphasizes how the “The alphabet is a body, that is carrying our bodies.” Natalie explains, about her students, that she “wants them to write all the iterations of a letter. Now we just have the letter A or the letter B, but I want them to paint with a big brush and India ink, and suddenly to realize, Oh this is an art form.” She sees the alphabet as a very important thing as it is a means to express one’s true self and it has the ability to represent your body and soul. This means of writing, with the alphabet being such a big part in expressing one’s self and Diaz believing that it a way that she has found to connect herself back with here body because words can carry so much weight, and the fact that this poem emphasizes on the true nature of “Angels” and how then Natives are better off without them, “we’re better off if they stay rich and fat and ugly and ’xactly where they are—in their own distant heavens” allows us to understand that there is a sense of connection to the body once again, knowing their true worth and knowing that they don’t need the help of white people in order to establish a good life for themselves, they know who they are and they know their worth.

This poem does an amazing job with tone, as I interpret this poem, I sense a stern and hostile tone towards the “angels.” Diaz is standing up for the Natives that had their lives destroyed by these white “angels” she exclaims “Quit bothering with angels, I say. They’re no good for Indians. Remember what happened last time some white god came floating across the ocean?” By saying this Diaz clearly alludes to the English colonizers who came to America and took Native land because they believed in “manifest destiny,” in other word they believe that it was their God-given right to take that land. The Natives were quite literally silenced by these white “angels” during this period, being killed and forcefully removed form land that rightfully belonged to the them. “You better hope you never see angels on the rez. If you do, they’ll be marching you off to Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they’ve mapped out for us.” But at last Diaz proclaims that the “angels” were full of B.S. and that the Natives weren’t in need of them, telling the Natives that they no longer should be silenced and should no longer surrender to these “angels”

Guadalupe Lemus

Flying on the Reservation

The poet Natalie Diaz explains in her interview the importance of the body and a sense of self was to her and the people around her, saying that “Things like pleasures, and the autonomy of pleasure, and ecstasy- those things weren’t allowed for us. We weren’t supposed to fulfill those things. So for me, it’s always about trying to come back to the body, trying to say- How can I constantly return to the body, even when it’s uncomfortable, so that I have the possibility of those things?” Diaz exclaims the constant denial of her self identity and place of belonging from outside forces, either politically or culturally, that keep the people in the reservation trapped. In both of the poems “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Reservation” and “My Brother at 3 A.M.”, Diaz demonstrates the emotions and systems of oppression that befall her and her people, as well as commenting on way to break away from those entrapments through community and understanding and fighting for the self.

The poem “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Reservation” utilizes a lot of vivid imagery in the very beginning of the poem, showing the various wildlife around the reservation, while commenting the lack of “angels”: “Angels don’t come to the reservation.\ Bats, maybe, owls, boxy mottled things.\ Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing-\ death. An death\ eats angels, I guess” (1-5). Diaz makes the comparison to all of these animals to mean death, which would usually be seen negatively, as she is commenting on the cruel land her and her people have been forced to reside on, but there is some positives, as this “death” keeps away angels. And angels don’t “fly” near the valley.

Angels and religion are utilized a lot within this poem, but angels are most notably a vehicle for whiteness and the white race, shown in one key section of the poem: “It’s no wonder\ Pastor John’s son is the angel- everyone knowns angels are white.\ Quit bothering with angels, I say. They’re no good for Indians.\ Remember what happened last time\ some white god came floating across the ocean?” (15-19). This section is obviously a reference to Manifest Destiny and the early colonialism of the American settlers, who used their faith and destiny as pretext for conquering and displacing countless Native Americans, almost completely slaughtering them before eventually putting them into the prisons they called “reservations”. There, the Native Americans were left alone to die of disease, poverty, and addiction.

What’s most interesting about this section is the first half of it, referring to the Christmas pageant where the church holds plays. Here, Diaz comments that only the pastor’s son gets to play the angel because he is white. This not only comments on the feeling of superiority that the church and white people have in general have towards Native Americans, but also showing a clear connection to the white race and these “angels” Diaz mentions. For Diaz, these “angels” were nothing more than conquerors, marauders that came in and took control of everything they could see until nothing was left. She wishes that the angels would leave them alone and stayed up in the “heavens” where they resided, because the last time that they came to the reservation, they put her and her people there in the first place.

What’s most interesting about this poem, however, is the heavy usage of enjambment in this poem, most notable in the lines: “I haven’t seen an angel\ fly through this valley ever. Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though-\ he came through here one powwow and stayed, typical\ Indian. Sure, he had wings,\ jailbird that he was. He flies around in stolen cars.” (5-10). Each of the words that are enjambed in these lines hold extra weight in this poem, words like “fly”, “Gabriel”, “Indian”, and “jailbird”. There is a clear comparison between the angel of Gabriel and that of this person named Gabe, who is an “Indian”. While Gabriel doesn’t fly around the valley, Gabe does, yet his version of flying is certainly different than the typical symbols of flying, especially in the context of “angels”. Yet, the heavy enjambment of “fly” and “jailbird” are highlighted so well in my mind. They are emphasized to such a degree that there is certainly a connection between these heavily enjambed lines. In this case, Diaz is using the symbol of flying and movement as a call to return to the body and community. Here, the man named Gabe is painted in a very negative light: He’s a criminal, steals cars, is seen as a “typical Indian”, and leaves behind children everywhere he goes. This is a commentary on the heavy cultural scrutiny that Native Americans face not only from outside forces, but have been conditioned to put on each other. It is a clear overlook of the struggles that this man named Gabe has faced. No one considers how he ended up that way, only the outcome.

Yet, unlike Gabriel and other “angels”, Gabe does fly around the valley, closer than any of the people who thought they were “helping”, like the pastor and his family. Unlike the “angels”, Diaz does not wish that Gabe doesn’t return to the valley, for Gabe is not some outsider, but a part of the community, and that community is what will be needed to deter the “angels” from causing more harm.

Sky Miller