At the Salvation Army

Samuel  J. Ortiz

 

From Sand Creek

 

At the Salvation Army

 

a clerk

 

caught me

 

 wandering

 

among old spoon and knives,

 

sweaters and shoes.

 

 

 

I couldn’t have stolen anything; my life was stolen already.

 

In protest though, I should have stolen.

 

My life. My life.

 

 

 

She caught me;

 

 Carson1 caught Indians,

 

secured them with his lies.         

 

Bound them with his belief.

 

 

 

After winter,

 

our own lives fled.

 

I reassured her

 

 what she believed.       

 

Bought a sweater.

 

And fled.

 

 

 

I should have stolen.

 

 My life. My life.

 

 

 

Q1.

 

At what point are you able to identify Simon Ortiz’s narrator as Native American? How does this identity change the significance of the poem?

 

Each response should be a minimum of 200 words and include support from the text.

 

Q2.

 

Compare and contrast the narrator of Zora Neale Hurston’s “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” and Toni Morrison’s main character, Sula.