Dildos, Hummingbirds, and Driving Her Crazy: Searching for American Indian Women's Love Poetry and Erotics

Abstract

In university course descriptions one finds classes about American Indian literature in varying degrees, depending on the institution, faculty, and location. To find a course on American Indian women's writing is truly difficult, and to find one on Native women's poetry even more extraordinary (unless you teach it yourself, as I do). Still, you would think that given the interdisciplinary trend current in academia, one would run across Native women writers in other courses and departments. And so, when I enrolled in "Women's Love Poetry and Erotics," at the University of Washington in 1997, I had reason to hope that some Native women writers would be included in the course readings and/or discussions. After all, this was Seattle, a ferry-ride away from one of the most prolific, and both infamous and famous writers of erotica, Chrystos! 1