Legacies and Heritage, Poetry, College Term Papers.com


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Back to Subjects - Poetry

Legacies and Heritage

Legacies and Heritage Nikki Giovanni and Linda Hogan both wrote poems in the 1970s about their grandmothers that seem totally different to the unaware reader. In actuality, they are very similar. These two poems, Legacies and Heritage, express the poet’s value of knowledge passed down from grandmother to granddaughter, from generation to generation. Even though the poems are composed and read very differently, the underlying message conveyed is the same, and each are valid first-hand accounts of legacies and heritages. While Giovanni's Legacies is only about the grandmother, Hogan's Heritage describes, in addition to the grandmother's and her advice, the advice and appearances of other family members. Despite this, the grandmother remains the focus. In Giovanni's poem, the grandmother needs no introduction or background given for her. In Heritage, however, the mention of the other family members seems to set the stage for Hogan’s mystical grandmother. Linda Hogan is a woman of mixed background; she is part Chickasaw Indian, and part Caucasian. This seems to cause Hogan doubts about herself. This is illustrated in the line " It was the brown stain/ that covered my shirt, / my whiteness a shame." (Hogan 243) These doubts could possibly be the same dilemma that haunted Sylvia Plath. Plath also had a conflict in her background; her father was a Nazi and her mother was part Jewish. Hogan may feel a similar pain, because in antiquity, the whites new to this continent exploited and killed Indians. She probably feels self-loathing in response to being around her Indian relatives, due to her white background. Giovanni does not feel any internal conflict concerning her heritage, but she is conflicted when her grandmother asks for her company. Because even though the older woman asks the girl to learn from her, all she wants, in reality, is the company of youth, and time to spend with her granddaughter. In Legacies, we are shown what the granddaughter is thinking behind the words of the refusal:" . . . even if she couldn't say it that/ that would mean when the old one died she would be/ less dependant on her spirit so..."(Giovanni 468). This means that the girl wants to be dependant on her grandmother even after she dies. Many younger children have a fear of being alone and having no one to take care of them. Therefore, her conflict lays in her words and thoughts. Some part of her may want to learn how to make rolls, but the thought of no longer needing her grandmother outweighs her desire for knowledge. So even after the grandmother passes away, Giovanni will always rely on her to make the best rolls. Linda Hogan has no such doubts or reservations like that. She is just taking in all the information her grandmother and family members give her. She pictures her grandmother as loaded with information, from how tobacco is used as medicine, to how consuming the meat of deer will help you travel many miles swiftly. In the last stanza, there are many mentions of travel. It seems that Hogan's tribe is nomadic by nature, as many southwestern Indian tribes are. This could be the meaning behind the last line " From my family I have learned the secrets/ of never having a home." (Hogan 473). In essence, a nomadic people would never have a home, only a strong sense of family. This entire poem stresses the closeness of the family members to each other, on how they rely on each other for strength and wisdom, much like the speaker in Giovanni's poem wants to forever rely on her grandmother. Giovanni and Hogan's grandmothers may seem a whole world apart from one other, but they are actually very much alike. They both have a strong sense of family, and both care deeply for their granddaughters. They both try to pass on a lifetime of information onto the younger generation. In essence, this is the meaning of both poems. The families and traditions may be different, but the end result reached for is the same: the handing down of ideas and customs from one generation to the other. Therefore, these two poems, with their outward differences, both convey the same theme. My grandmother taught me things, as did Giovanni's grandmother, as did Hogan's. All older generations strive to pass on their traditions and wisdom onto people who can still use them. In ancient mythology, the crone, or old woman, was a figure wise in lore, remedies and magic. So are the two women in these poems. Even the titles themselves are connected; heritage and legacy are synonyms of each other. And while these poems aren't mirror reflections of one other, they are different versions of the same narrative. Everyone has their own story of their grandmother to tell, but it will never be the same as the next person's. Two stories that seem so radically different from each other will be alternate versions of one description, just like the two works by Nikki Giovanni and Linda Hogan that pay homage to their grandmothers’ wisdom and knowledge. Bibliography:

Word Count: 845