http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/10/missing-persons/ A blog from the Poetry Foundation where contemporary poets debate classic and contemporary poetry from America and around the world. Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:36:51 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/10/missing-persons/#comment-1177 john Mon, 08 Oct 2007 07:04:55 +0000 http://pf/harriet/?p=429#comment-1177 I once liked a very short poem so much that I quoted it in full in a song lyric. The poem was titled "Death Song" and attributed to a Papago Indian named Juana Manwell (Owl Woman) I first read it in Jerome Rothenberg's monumental anthology "Technicians of the Sacred," in a translation by Frances Densmore. My song is called "Down into the Death." I went to the library to read the 90-year-old government report in which Densmore first published the poem. The library will not lend the report but will let someone read it on the spot. It turns out that the title is a later invention, and, according to Densmore's notes, Manwell said the song is a healing song. Not a death song at all. I later found that Rothenberg had not invented the faulty title, because Margot Astrov used it in her anthology of American Indian Prose and Poetry, "The Winged Serpent." But maybe Astrov got the title from somewhere else. "Down into the Death" also quotes a line that Ted Berrigan borrowed from Shakespeare. Following a stream to its source can be a journey worth taking. Here is Juana Manwell's healing song. I love singing it. In the great night my heart will go out. Toward me the darkness comes rattling. In the great night my heart will go out. I once liked a very short poem so much that I quoted it in full in a song lyric. The poem was titled “Death Song” and attributed to a Papago Indian named Juana Manwell (Owl Woman) I first read it in Jerome Rothenberg’s monumental anthology “Technicians of the Sacred,” in a translation by Frances Densmore. My song is called “Down into the Death.”
I went to the library to read the 90-year-old government report in which Densmore first published the poem. The library will not lend the report but will let someone read it on the spot.
It turns out that the title is a later invention, and, according to Densmore’s notes, Manwell said the song is a healing song. Not a death song at all.
I later found that Rothenberg had not invented the faulty title, because Margot Astrov used it in her anthology of American Indian Prose and Poetry, “The Winged Serpent.” But maybe Astrov got the title from somewhere else.
“Down into the Death” also quotes a line that Ted Berrigan borrowed from Shakespeare.
Following a stream to its source can be a journey worth taking.
Here is Juana Manwell’s healing song. I love singing it.
In the great night my heart will go out.
Toward me the darkness comes rattling.
In the great night my heart will go out.

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