Thursday, March 28, 2024

Diné poet takes on ‘solastalgia’

Diné poet takes on ‘solastalgia’

BROOKLYN, N.Y.

Before taking the stage at the Asian American Writer’s Workshop for a poetry slam, Demian DineYazhi’ added a little touch of home with a colorful, flowery scarf.

The kind of scarves his grandma and thousands of other Navajo masanis wear during ceremonies, sheepherding, or protection from the elements.

Once the 32-year-old added that garment to the stage, the Solastalgia tour that took him and his friend Jess Chen from California to New York began. DineYazhi’, who collaborated with other poets of color, including Chen, on an eco-feminist theme, spoke mostly about growing up in and around the Navajo Nation to the queer-friendly Manhattan crowd in Greenwich Village on May 17.

“For indigenous people, we are consistently navigating spaces in a post-apocalyptic dystopian reality,” DineYazhi’ said, explaining that solastalgia in Native communities is real and often occurs when non-Natives romanticize Indigenous peoples rather than viewing them as present, modern beings.

Coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2013, “solastalgia” refers to the distress produced by environmental change impacting people directly connected to their homeland.

Fellow poet Ceci Pineda defined solastalgia in a lyrical form as “the pain experienced when the place that one loves and one adores is under immediate assault.”

In New York City, Pineda noted that solastalgia is the gentrification movement happening in the city’s five boroughs, where the rising cost of living is displacing small business and low-income families. Similarly, Pineda referenced how solastaglia exists in indigenous communities with missing and murdered women and children. Often, they’re victims of sexual violence, Pineda said, echoing DineYazhi’s creative work.


 To read the full article, pick up your copy of the Navajo Times at your nearest newsstand Thursday mornings!

Are you a digital subscriber? Read the most recent three weeks of stories by logging in to your online account.

  Find newsstand locations at this link.

Or, subscribe via mail or online here.




 

About The Author

ADVERTISEMENT

Weather & Road Conditions

Window Rock Weather

Fair

56.0 F (13.3 C)
Dewpoint: 19.9 F (-6.7 C)
Humidity: 24%
Wind: from the Southwest at 17.3 gusting to 32.2 MPH (15 gusting to 28 KT)
Pressure: 30.09

More weather »

ADVERTISEMENT