Spirit Car

Yesterday, August 24, our book club discussed Diane Wilson's Spirit Car. It's an example of "intuitive anthropology."

She recounts her visits to the places in Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska where her people, Lakota Sioux, had lived. There are many features of her good book I  can commend to you, but I'll limit myself here to just one.

Wilson writes prose that is almost poetical when she describes how knowing where we're from gives us a sense of place that is indispensable if we are to have a sense of our individual identity.

Hope

              Hope

A name may be arbitrary

But once given it's very

Specific. Ruth is always Ruth

And by personal linguistic truth

Ruth looks and acts like a Ruth.

Onomastics or toponymy

Reveal names of Mayflower fares as well:

Love Brewster and Humility Cooper

Helped prepare the way for a colonist suitor

To marry a Virtue, not just any souter. 

Constance, Desire and Remember;

Each woman a charter member

At Plymouth colony. A common trope,

Those Virtue eponyms that cope.

A pilgrim can persevere with Hope.

The Show

          

Grover, Sparky, Lefty and Cap.

Ernie, Yogi, Ducky and Nap.

Hit it where they ain't.

Jesse, Happy, Mickey and Whitey,

Eddie, Charlie, Jocko and Rollie.

Good pitchers master the feint.

Dizzy, Dazzy, Daffy  and Ted.

Reggie, Sandy, Jackie and Red.

Ball fans worship Rita the Saint.