Chrystos (born November 7, 1946, as Christina Smith) is a Menominee self-educated writer and two-spirit activist who has published various books and poems that explore indigenous Americans's civil rights, social justice, and feminism. Chrystos is also a lecturer, writing teacher and fine-artist.
Life and career
Chrystos – a resident of Bainbridge Island, Washington since 1980 – is a lesbian- and two-spirit-identifying writer, who uses the gender-neutral pronouns they and their. Born off-reservation in San Francisco, California as part of a group called urban Indians, Chrystos was taught to read by a self-educated father, and began writing poetry at age nine. Chrystos did not have English as a first language, and picked it up in the form of Black American street slang while residing in housing projects, only to be scolded and humiliated later for using this register of English. Chrystos also suffered sexual abuse by a relative, and experienced an emotional and abnormal childhood due to an abusive and depressed Euro-immigrant mother, and a father who was ashamed of his Menominee heritage. At the age of seventeen, Chrystos was put into a mental institution for a summer, and claims that survival on the streets would have been uncertain if that had not happened. Chrystos continued to voluntarily enter such institutions for several years, until realizing that it was making the issues worse.
A self-described political poet, Chrystos was inspired by familial angst stemming from white cultural hegemony, and more positively by the work of Audre Lorde, Joy Harjo, Elizabeth Woody, and Lillian Pitt, among others, to produced a series of volumes of poetry and prose throughout the 1980's and 1990's (see bibliography below). The work relies on a diverse mixture of characters and ideas, and focuses on social justice issues, reaching towards a better understanding of how issues such as colonialism, genocide, class and gender affect the lives of women and of indigenous peoples. Much of the writer's childhood is evident in works about street life, gardening, mental institutions, incest, "the Man" (authoritarian patriarchy), love, sex, and hate. The works are primarily intended for an audience of Native American / First Nations, people of color more broadly, and lesbians. They are also aimed at raising awareness of Native American heritage and culture, while breaking down stereotypes. Chrystos self-illustrated many of the covers, and usually had the books published in Canada to work around censorious American publishers and "very little support for writers" in the United States. Chrystos edits minimally, by reading the work aloud and sometimes removing words or changing the way that the lines appear. Breath, thought, and correlation organize the lines of the poems, which use visually oriented language to create oral expression. The author takes the approach that poetry and oral readings of it are not truly separate, and embeds internal rhymes, puns, intentional clichés, and other word play into the poetry.
Chrystos has won awards and honors that include a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Human Rights Freedom of Expression Award, the Sappho Award of Distinction from the Astrea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, and a Barbara Demming Grant; and also won the Aude Lorde International Poetry Competition.
Activism work by Chrystos includes efforts to free Norma Jean Croy and Leonard Peltier, and on behalf of the rights of tribes such as Diné (Navajo) and Mohawk.
Bibliography
This Bridge Called My Back (anthology) Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1981; contributor
Not Vanishing, Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1988, ISBN 0-88974-015-1
Dream On, Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1991
In Her I Am, Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1993
Fugitive Colors, Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1995, ISBN 1-880834-11-1
Fire Power, Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1995, ISBN 0-88974-047-X
Some Poems by People I Like (anthology of 5 poets; Sandra Alland, editor) Toronto: SandrasLittleBookshop, 2007, ISBN 978-0-9739540-1-2; contributor*
MULUC
Kin 209: Red Magnetic Moon
I polarize in order to love
Stabilizing loyalty
I seal the process of heart
With the lunar tone of challenge
I am guided by the power of spirit
I am a galactic activation portal
Enter me.
Super-mental states can only be experienced once your conditioned mental containers are emptied and you have gone beyond the inhibiting barriers of ego.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2017-2018.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Manipura Chakra (Limi Plasma)
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