Blackwell Reference Online

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Basketball is like this for Walt Whitman. He watches these Indian boys as if they were the last bodies on earth. Every body is brown! Walt Whitman shakes because he believes in God. Walt Whitman dreams of the Indian boy who will defend him, trapping him in the corner, all flailing arms and legs and legendary stomach muscles… There is no place like this. Walt Whitman smiles. Walt Whitman shakes. This game belongs to him. (Alexie, “Defending”: (15) These whimsical lines from Sherman Alexie's poem “Defending Walt Whitman” (1996) dramatize the predicament faced not only by Native American writers, but also by Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and indeed all US writers who belong to emergent literary traditions. As a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, Alexie is playing a game in which he is the underdog and Whitman the favorite: Whitman dominates the landscape of US poetry; his powerful shots “strik[e] the rim so hard that it sparks”; the “game belongs to him.” The poem imagines “Indian boys” who must defend against Whitman, who must prevent him from scoring by blocking his shots. Yet it also imagines other Indians, those who are Whitman's team-mates: “Some body throws a crazy pass,” Alexie writes, “and Walt Whitman catches it with quick hands.” These Indians work with Whitman; they defend him against those who oppose him. The poem pays homage to Whitman by adopting his free verse idiom ... log in or subscribe to read full text