Hannah Greer

Professor Ebony Coletu

ENG 200H

25 April 2017

Poet-Shaman Aesthetics

In Speculative Realism, Visionary Pragmatism, and Poet-Shamanic Aesthetics in Gloria

Anzaldua - And Beyond, AnaLouise Keating defines poet-shaman aesthetics as a transformative

writing practice [. . .] A synergistic combination of artistry, healing, and transformation grounded

in relational, indigenous-inflected worldviews (Keating, 51). Prior to introducing this term,

Keating addresses the linguistic turn in poststructuralist thought often criticized and rejected

by feminist scholars. Although Keating introduces this term, the linguistic turn first, she

revisits it throughout the essay as a reinforcing, secondary term analogous to the primary term

poet-shaman aesthetics. In addition to supplying a familiar secondary term to explain the

fundamentals of poet-shaman aesthetics, Keating references Gregory Cajetes Native Science:

Natural Laws of Interdependence to expand upon the relational, indigenous-inflected

worldviews upon which poet-shaman aesthetics is founded.

When I first read the term poet-shaman aesthetics, I recognized each individual word

but not the full phrase. If I had to guess, I would have assumed that poet-shaman aesthetics were

(it took some time to realize this is a singular term) pieces of creative writing that mimic Native

American ritualistic poetry. I recognized the word poet as most of us would, but I learned of

shamans when I studied philosophy of world religion in high school. Thus, I instantly thought of

a medicine man or leader of initiation rituals and vision quests. The word aesthetics confused

me, leading me to believe that poet-shaman aesthetics could be someones literary/poetic

preference (like, this is my aesthetic!). At this point in Keatings passage, the secondary term

linguistic turn in poststructuralist thought was of little help - I have read Derrida, Foucault,

Saussure; none of the poststructuralist works I have read bore the slightest resemblance to my

idea of post-shaman aesthetics.

After referencing Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence immediately

following the introduction of poet-shaman aesthetics, Keating asserts that the term represents an

entirely embodied and potentially transformative intertwining of language, physiology/matter,

and world. She then insists the concept represents the linguistic turn in poststructuralism, but

not the more commonly presumed turn away from material reality and our embodied flesh-and-

blood world (Keating, 51-52). While this offered me little insight as to what exactly poet-

shaman aesthetics is, I came to understand after finishing the passage and reading a chapter of

Cajetes book that Keating argues that the concept does not turn away but rather increases our

awareness of material reality and outside but interconnected realities. She expands her point by

explaining that in poet-shaman aesthetics, words reflect the interwoven realities existing all

around us; they do not create them but rather bring our attention to them, shifting our reality.

Keating identifies the source of the term she borrows from Gloria Anzalduas essay

Metaphors in the Tradition of the Shaman in a short excerpt in which Anzaldua explains the

origin of the word shaman. She describes poet-shaman aesthetics as a union between poet

and shaman in non-literate societies, identifying their role as healers, medicine men, etc. She

likens herself to a shaman and her writing to poet-shaman aesthetics in that she recognizes

illnesses in society that damage both our culture and ourselves as individuals. Anzaldua attempts

to cure these ailments the same way they were inflicted: via metaphor. It is through this

particular metaphor that I began understanding what Anzaldua and Keating mean in reference to
poet-shaman aesthetics. Anzalduas comparison of a shamans role, to preserve and create

cultural or group identity by mediating between the cultural heritage of the past and the present

everyday situations people find themselves in to her role as an author in writing Borderlands/La

Frontera solidifies the goal of poet-shaman aesthetics (Anzaldua, 121). Keating is vague in

describing the linguistic turn feminist scholars condemn and how it removes readers from our

embodied world, yet Anzalduas excerpt is effective in distinguishing that poet-shaman aesthetics

seek not to remove or isolate but to mobilize thinking across different times, places, realities.

The next time Keating offers an expanded definition, she states that, In poet-shaman

aesthetics, language can initiate physiological, material change. This deeply embodied

transformation directly links shamanism's shape-shifting power and Indigenous theories of

participatory speech acts with poetry's intimate relationship with language (Keating, 53). Poet-

shaman aesthetics describes language that, in short, can change the world; this is the concept

Cajete concretized for me. As he explains in his chapter The Philosophy of Native Science,

Native science is founded upon phenomenology, which roots the entire tree of knowledge in the

soil of the direct physical and perceptual experience of the earth (Cajete, 45). Thus, Native

science is born out of a lived and storied participation with natural landscape and reality

(Cajete, 46). According to Cajete, a peoples cosmology forms their culture, their ontology;

language, and before that, images, are used to express a cultures cosmology. If societal norms,

values, and ideals are all dependent upon a cultures understanding of their origin stories, then

the stories, the language used to tell the stories, shapes our cosmology and therefore our

culture/society. Ergo, this exemplifies Keatings assertion that speech acts create the world

around us. Cajete pioneered the modern incorporation of indigenous perspectives within sciences

into western academia. Thus, he is an important member of the discourse community to which
poet-shaman aesthetics belongs and strengthens the claim that language can transform us by

referencing it as symbolic of our understanding of the universe, and metaphysical.

Cajete backs Keatings claims that it is no linguistic turn in poststructuralism that

removes thinkers from material reality. Rather, according to Cajete, Modern thinking abstracts

the mind from the human body and the body of the world. This modern orientation frequently

disconnects Western science from the lived and experienced world of perception. This

disassociation becomes most pronounced at the level of perception, because our perceptions

orient us in the most elemental way to our surroundings. (Cajete, 46). Thus, it is not a fault of

language, not too great an emphasis on words and signifiers but rather a flaw in the pattern of

isolation in Western science that distorts our perception of the world. Cajetes claims, in

alignment with Anzalduas and Keatings, crystallize both the meaning and purpose of poet-

shaman aesthetics within this particular discourse community, concerned with the effect

language has on the world. Without referring to it by name, Cajetes chapter also clarifies the

necessity of poet-shaman aesthetics in shifting our perspectives so that we may acquire a less

detached, dissociated perception of the world and ourselves within the world - something he,

Anzaldua, and Keating agree on. Cajete stresses a need to return to Americas true roots in

Native American science to better our perceptions of the world, Anzaldua insists that Indigenous

thought is essential to inform present and future life, and Keating contends that poet-shaman

aesthetics are the cure to the effects of internalized systemic oppressions (i.e. racism,

homophobia, etc.)

As the passage extends, Keating reveals that, According to poet-shaman aesthetics,

carefully crafted metaphoric language does not simply describe these multileveled changes; it

has the potential to assist usto enactthese transformations (Keating, 59). Keating is
referring to the extent to which language and literature can influence and inspire readers

mentally, emotionally, and even physically. She cites her own personal experience after reading

Anzalduas Borderlands/La Frontera, detailing a dream she had similar to a character in the book

which altered her perception of the world thereafter. She references the barriers to other realities

she permeated in her dreams, symbolized by walls, that [startled Keating] out of conventional

reality and typical modes of perception, dragging [her] into alternative worlds, inviting [her]

(forcing [her]?) to expand (Keating, 61). If successful, according to both Keating and Anzaldua,

poet-shaman aesthetics will transform readers; stories told with metaphoric language belonging

to the writing practice will be a map pointing the way into (or at least instructing readers about)

multiple overlapping, interwoven, coexisting realities (Keating, 61).

Keating cements the goal of poet-shaman aesthetics with one last reference to Anzalduas

Metaphors in the Tradition of the Shaman,

Because we use metaphors as well as hierbitas or curing stones to effect changes,

we follow in the tradition of the shaman. Like the shaman, we transmit

information from our consciousness to the physical body of another. If we're

lucky we create, like the shaman, images that induce altered states of

consciousness conducive to self-healing. If we've done our job well we may give

others access to a language and images with which they can articulate/express

pain, confusion, joy, and other experiences thus far experienced only on an

inarticulated emotional level. From our own and our people s experiences, we will

try to create images and metaphors that will give us a handle on the numinous, a

handle on the faculty for self-healing, one that may cure the depressed spirit, the

frightened soul. (1990,122)

 Like shamans, we rely on metaphors to effect change in the world - more specifically, we

rely on rhetoric to spread ideas, offer new perspectives, and convince others to conform to our

views. If we are successful in our poet-shaman aesthetics, we induce some sort of self-healing in

the form of transformed perception of the universe.

While my initial understanding of poet-shaman aesthetics was far from the theoretical

definition, with the help of quotes from Anzalduas novel, essay, and interviews, Keating

amassed a wealth of information, examples, and in-depth explanations of her writing practice.

References to Keatings footnotes enhanced my understanding and further clarified scholars

understanding of poet-shaman aesthetics, or at least of the concepts it envelopes. Cajetes The

Philosophy of Native Science served as a specialized perspective informing me of how we come

to understand the world around us and make connections (through cosmology), exemplifying

within the discourse community how Native practices can and should be learned and

implemented to enhance our understanding of the world and marry our minds and bodies back

with the earth and material reality.

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria, and AnaLouise Keating. The Gloria Anzaldua reader. Durham: Duke

U Press, 2009. Google Books. Duke University Press, 2009. Web. 25 Apr. 2017.

Cajete, Gregory. Native science: natural laws of interdependence. Santa Fe, NM: Clear

Light Publishers, 2000. Print.

 Keating, Analouise. "Speculative Realism, Visionary Pragmatism, and Poet-Shamanic

Aesthetics in Gloria Anzalduaand Beyond." WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly 40.3-4 (2013):

51-69. Web. 25 Apr. 2017.