She Had Some Horses — Transcript

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1. 0:01Hey everyone. In this video, I'm going
2. 0:02to take you through the poem, She Had
3. 0:04Some Horses, which was published by uh
4. 0:07which was written by Joy Harjo in the
5. 0:091980s. So, this is a seemingly simple
6. 0:12poem. Each of the lines begins with the
7. 0:14phrase, "She had some horses and then it
8. 0:17describes different horses." But the
9. 0:19question that um comes up is what are
10. 0:23these horses a metaphor for? the there
11. 0:25she's describing a lot of different
12. 0:26horses with lots of crazy different
13. 0:28personalities. Um the horses are male,
14. 0:31they're female. Um are the horses
15. 0:33possibly a metaphor for Native
16. 0:35Americans? Uh are they possibly a
17. 0:38metaphor for all people? What the heck
18. 0:40are these horses? That's kind of the
19. 0:41question we need to answer. So there's a
20. 0:44lot of possible interpretations. Um you
21. 0:47know, one of the things you could say
22. 0:49about the poem is just simply that
23. 0:50they're contradictory. Uh the some of
24. 0:53the horses were made afraid. They were
25. 0:56made afraid and yet they said they
26. 0:58weren't afraid. Um and of course at the
27. 1:00very end we have the line she had some
28. 1:02horses she loved. She had some horses
29. 1:04she hated. These were the same horses.
30. 1:07Uh so the horses are contradictory. And
31. 1:10then um another possible interpretation
32. 1:12is that perhaps the poem is about Native
33. 1:14American trauma or just trauma in in
34. 1:16general. Even the opening stanza
35. 1:18describes the horses as made of clay. um
36. 1:22and would break. So that's the first
37. 1:24hint that there's some there's some
38. 1:26fracture happening in this poem. There's
39. 1:28some there's some uh something uh some
40. 1:32weakness happening. But I'm I'd like to
41. 1:34contend I'd like to introduce you to the
42. 1:37idea of this poem being about sexual
43. 1:40violence particularly against indigenous
44. 1:42women. So listen, as early as the 1700s,
45. 1:46indigenous women and girls were
46. 1:47particularly impacted because as females
47. 1:49during wartime, colonial expansion and
48. 1:51slavery are especially vulnerable to the
49. 1:53sexual violence that are so often
50. 1:55accompanied by conquest. In some cases,
51. 1:59you know, even not in wartime, not in
52. 2:02wartime, which is what's being described
53. 2:03here. Um, in at in peace time, sometimes
54. 2:07indigenous people were squeezed off of
55. 2:10their land.
56. 2:12um and starving and cold. And so
57. 2:15sometime they just need they just needed
58. 2:17money in this new money economy.
59. 2:19Sometimes out of desperation some
60. 2:21indigenous women did prostitute
61. 2:22themselves to mainly male settlers who
62. 2:27were nearby. Um and uh sometimes Dunar
63. 2:31Roxan Dunar describes how in some
64. 2:32situations they were even cheated um
65. 2:35after prostituting themselves. They were
66. 2:37not given the money they they were
67. 2:39supposed to get.
68. 2:41uh one in three women. So even today uh
69. 2:44this sexual violence against indigenous
70. 2:46women remains a problem. One in three
71. 2:48Native American women has been raped or
72. 2:50experienced attempted rape which is more
73. 2:53than twice the national average. And um
74. 2:56sexual and in Indian boarding schools
75. 2:59which first opened in the 1800s but
76. 3:02didn't close until the 1970s. The last
77. 3:04the last of the Indian boarding schools
78. 3:06didn't close till the till late into the
79. 3:08um 20th century. sexual abuse of both
80. 3:10boys and girls was rampant, right?
81. 3:12Because we had in these Indian schools,
82. 3:14we had this really unequal power dynamic
83. 3:17between between adults who were supposed
84. 3:19to take care of them and then these
85. 3:21these children who had kind of been left
86. 3:25um uh to be taken care of under false
87. 3:28pretenses. But indigenous people make up
88. 3:30only 1% of the US population and yet
89. 3:32they account for 25% of human
90. 3:34trafficking victims. So the the history
91. 3:37um underlying this, you know, goes all
92. 3:40the way back to colonial times. Uh but
93. 3:43it is something that we still deal with
94. 3:44today. And I'm I'm going to contend that
95. 3:46this poem uh seems to be about this
96. 3:49issue. So the scene um listen, the scene
97. 3:53could be everywhere. In this in the
98. 3:55opening stanza, she describes bodies of
99. 3:59sand and maps and ocean and sky. Um,
100. 4:03she's
101. 4:04describing ocean and air. It could and
102. 4:08desert environments, bodies of sand and
103. 4:11splintered red cliffs. The horses
104. 4:12themselves are these natural elements.
105. 4:15They are the scene themselves. Um, and
106. 4:18yet later on after that first stanza,
107. 4:21um, the scene shifts there. There's not
108. 4:25too much of a scene because mostly she's
109. 4:27describing the horses, but the scene
110. 4:28shifts to I want to say a bar. There's a
111. 4:31lot of dancing that happens in this in
112. 4:33this poem. The horses waltz nightly on
113. 4:36the moon. Um, you can't really dance on
114. 4:39the moon, but I guess I guess one of
115. 4:41these horses just feels so delighted and
116. 4:43is just high on something or alcohol or
117. 4:47just really happy that it feels like
118. 4:49they're dancing on the moon. Okay. Um,
119. 4:51one of the horses liked stomp creek
120. 4:54stomp dance songs. Very specific. I'm
121. 4:56not sure what kind of a song that is,
122. 4:58but they knew what they liked and that's
123. 5:00what they like to dance to. U there's
124. 5:02also alcohol in this song um in this
125. 5:04poem rather. Uh we have one horse who is
126. 5:07crying into their beer uh for some
127. 5:10reason. And we have another horse who
128. 5:11spit at male queens. So this might be a
129. 5:14drag bar. Um there's a male queen in
130. 5:17this poem. So and one of the horses spit
131. 5:20at the male queens cuz the horse didn't
132. 5:21like didn't like these these drag
133. 5:23queens. Um, so all of this together
134. 5:26suggests that maybe this is happening at
135. 5:28a bar. Uh, some the horses are dancing
136. 5:31there. There's a little bit of drinking
137. 5:33going on. Um, so that's another possible
138. 5:35scene. And then at the end, of course,
139. 5:37we have another scene um which takes
140. 5:39place in in a bed in a bedroom. Yeah.
141. 5:42The horse who climbed in her bed at
142. 5:43night, which we'll talk more about. So,
143. 5:46a lot of these horses are also engaging
144. 5:47in really self-destructive behavior.
145. 5:49That's it's a theme that comes up. We
146. 5:51got horses who threw rocks at glass
147. 5:53houses. That is a phrase. Don't throw
148. 5:55rocks at glass houses. So, what that
149. 5:57means is uh don't criticize other people
150. 6:00cuz you probably have the same fault
151. 6:02yourself. So, some of the horses, at
152. 6:05least one of the horses, uh threw rocks
153. 6:07at glass houses criticized other people
154. 6:10even when they had some of the same
155. 6:11faults themselves. We got horses who
156. 6:13licked razor blades. That seems like a
157. 6:15really bad idea. Um we had we had horses
158. 6:18who she she has she has horses she had
159. 6:21horses who kept quiet in stalls of their
160. 6:24own making. So the stalls is a reference
161. 6:26to the horses right horses are live in
162. 6:29stalls are kept in stalls. Um but this
163. 6:32horse is in a stall of their own making.
164. 6:34So this this horse this person is living
165. 6:36a very small life. A very small life.
166. 6:39Just a just a stall but it is of their
167. 6:42own making. They chose to do this. It
168. 6:44was fully their own decision. We have
169. 6:46horses who lied. Probably not a good
170. 6:48idea. Some self-destructive behavior. We
171. 6:50have horses who waited for
172. 6:52destruction. Um they literally they were
173. 6:55waiting for destruction. Okay. So we
174. 6:57have a lot of horses who are not taking
175. 7:00very good care of themselves um and
176. 7:02engaging in self-destructive behavior.
177. 7:05And then the and then the last thing I
178. 7:06want to point out is this um the sexual
179. 7:09imagery that does come up. So listen,
180. 7:11it's not in most of the poem, but if you
181. 7:13go back and take a look after this
182. 7:15opening stanza, the very first thing,
183. 7:18the very first physical attribute that
184. 7:20is described with of the horse is the
185. 7:23long pointed breast and then the full
186. 7:26brown thighs. So immediately we're
187. 7:29pointed in a sexual direction.
188. 7:33Um thighs, we're we're okay, we're
189. 7:37interesting. And then right after um the
190. 7:39sexual imagery though, we had horses who
191. 7:41laughed too much. So maybe this is like
192. 7:43a flirt flirt flirting situation or a or
193. 7:48maybe the horse the woman is
194. 7:50uncomfortable in this sexual situation,
195. 7:52right? When you laugh too much, it means
196. 7:54you're uncomfortable. So this is okay.
197. 7:57The very early on we get this we get
198. 8:00this sexual discomfort. Um the the
199. 8:03sexual imagery kind of goes away for a
200. 8:05lot of the poem. We got the dancing, we
201. 8:08got the beer. Um, it seems like we have
202. 8:11a little bit of a bar scene. Um, and
203. 8:13then but the but the sexual imagery
204. 8:15comes back in full force in the last
205. 8:18couple uh stanzas. Okay, we got horses
206. 8:21who got down on their knees for any
207. 8:23savior. So, this could be religious. We
208. 8:26This could be a religious horse who who
209. 8:29says their prayers on their knees for
210. 8:31their god. Uh this is also um uh sexual
211. 8:35imagery because it's possibly uh someone
212. 8:38getting on their knees uh to perform
213. 8:40sexual acts for someone who they hope
214. 8:43will save them, a partner or a lover who
215. 8:46they hope will save them and and be
216. 8:48their uh night and shining armor. Um we
217. 8:52had horses who thought their high price
218. 8:54would save them. So again, this is a
219. 8:56reference to a horse. um horses are
220. 8:59bought and sold and some horses are more
221. 9:01expensive than others. If they're a
222. 9:03better breed, if they're healthy, they
223. 9:04will go for a higher price. But in this
224. 9:06case, we have this personified horse who
225. 9:10has human attributes and is being sold
226. 9:13for a price. H okay, wait, what? Um and
227. 9:17they thought that this high price that
228. 9:19their high price I I don't know how much
229. 9:22uh prostitutes cost, but maybe this pro
230. 9:24maybe I don't know. They thought it was
231. 9:26a higher price. Um, and they thought
232. 9:28that having that high price would save
233. 9:30them, would protect them from something.
234. 9:33Um, so potentially I don't think the
235. 9:36horse I mean maybe the horse is a slave,
236. 9:37but for some reason this horse is being
237. 9:39bought and sold. This horse who is human
238. 9:42is being bought and sold. And then of
239. 9:43course at the end um the horse we have a
240. 9:46horse who climbed in her bed at night
241. 9:49and prayed as they raped her. So the
242. 9:51horse is the rapist in this poem and in
243. 9:55a twisted uh detail this horse frayed as
244. 9:59they raped her. Um so this is a
245. 10:01religious uh horse who maybe believes
246. 10:05that he is saving her um as as he rapes
247. 10:12her. Uh so pretty twisted, pretty
248. 10:15graphic, uh pretty explicit. Um, and
249. 10:18then of course at the end she had horses
250. 10:20she loved, she had horses she hated. Um,
251. 10:22love sometimes accompanies sex. Um, and
252. 10:26then sometimes hate also, right?
253. 10:28Sometimes you hate the ones you love.
254. 10:30Uh,
255. 10:31so yeah. So I just want to point out it
256. 10:34does go away for the middle part of the
257. 10:36poem, uh, where we have this bar
258. 10:39imagery, but we come back in full force
259. 10:43to that sexual imagery. And then here's
260. 10:46the other thing, okay? And and then
261. 10:47especially with the rape, right? And
262. 10:49here's the other thing. Um the other
263. 10:52theme that comes up is that a lot of
264. 10:54these horses keep quiet. Um they keep
265. 10:58quiet in stalls of their own making.
266. 11:01They lie. We we got some horses who told
267. 11:04the truth but then who were stripped
268. 11:06bare of their tongue. So they learn to
269. 11:08not speak up. They these horses learn to
270. 11:11not speak up, right? Because their their
271. 11:12tongues are going to be taken from them.
272. 11:14um they kept their voices secret and to
273. 11:17themselves. We had horses who whispered
274. 11:19in the dark. Maybe this is in the
275. 11:21bedroom scene. I don't know. Who
276. 11:22whispered in the dark, who were afraid
277. 11:24to speak. We have horses who were afraid
278. 11:26to speak, who did not speak. And then
279. 11:29and then finally, we also have horses
280. 11:31who screamed out of the fear of silence.
281. 11:33So, this is the contradiction again. We
282. 11:35have we have the black and then we have
283. 11:37the white. Um but for some, but this is
284. 11:39a theme in that comes up in this poem.
285. 11:42uh we have these horses these people
286. 11:45want want to and have to keep quiet. So
287. 11:49there so together with this uh with this
288. 11:52sexual violence this im this imagery of
289. 11:55sexual violence it suggests that the
290. 11:57horses um that the women um keep quiet.
291. 12:04Uh yeah. So it raises a it raises a lot
292. 12:07of questions. Um and it's really it's
293. 12:10really kind of hidden from view in this
294. 12:12poem, but I want to point out to you
295. 12:14that it's there. And so if we understand
296. 12:17this context of um the pervasiveness of
297. 12:21sexual violence against indigenous women
298. 12:23all throughout their history, all
299. 12:25throughout their history. And even today
300. 12:27um we can understand that maybe uh the
301. 12:30poet is trying to say a say point out a
302. 12:34lot of things about the um Native
303. 12:36American experience but also point out
304. 12:39um this particular strand of it as well.