Anchorage Response

This poem is very complex. The scene is set in an old California city that lay on the ocean. In the poem, the speaker is comparing several things. It seems as though the earth is being compared to the treatment of human races (specifically Native Americans). It also seems that in the beginning of the poem, the wind/ sky above is a metaphor for heaven as lava/ the substance below the earth’s surface is a metaphor for hell. Much of the poem does revolve around survival. In fact the last line of the poem is, “Because who would believe the fantastic and terrible story of all our survival those who were never meant to survive?” This specific quote as well as the preceding lines seem to praise the resilience of the earth and nature in general. (Nature including every aspect of environment/ life). Moreover, it seems as thought the speaker is trying to unite several aspects of this world into one tragic story of surpassing obstacles whether good or bad. In other words, the speaker is saying that nature is everything. Nature is survival. The speaker is viewing nature in spiritual, (heaven and hell), political (the treatment of Native Americans), and philosophical terms (nature being everything). This poem seems to contain both a positive and negative undertone. It is much more up front in its philosophical questioning than many of the other literary works. Many of the other works are far more abstract.