Abstracts of papers:
The Chimalpahin Conference 2008:
Colonial and Post-Colonial Remembering and Forgetfulness
October 15 - 18, 2008
Blurred Identites and Transformed Myths in the Poetry of Jon Dressel
David Lloyd
Department of English
Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York
Through a detailed reading of two poems by Jon Dressel (an American of Welsh descent), my paper will identify innovative poetic strategies employed to grapple with issues at the heart of the 2008 Chimalpahin Conference: multiple and blurred cultural identities, historical memory and forgetfulness, reinterpretations of history, and the processes of cultural globalization.
My paper will demonstrate how in his poem “Note from a Soldier” Jon Dressel critiques the ways the Arthurian myths (originating in an actual 6th century historical conflict in Britain) have been appropriated, transformed, and globalized. Dressel is fascinated by how history mutates into myth, myth into popular culture, and how such transformations carry the fingerprints of political manipulation. In this vein, “Note from a Soldier” allows the historical Arthur a voice that transcends time as he catalogues the mutations Arthur’s story has suffered: from his origins as the 6th Century Romano-British cavalry leader whose military genius contained the invading Saxons, to a benevolent if naïve King of England holding court at Camelot, an astonishingly popular and versatile mythology. While comically transforming Arthur into a contemporary Welsh-American, the poem also levels a critique against the American culture-machine that absorbs, transforms then diminishes world myths and stories into shadows of themselves.
The second poem, “A Bedtime Story,” critiques colonialism and British imperialistic ventures through the vehicle of the Welsh legend of Prince Madoc’s 12th Century supposed journey from North Wales to discover America. Legend had it that Madoc and his followers intermarried with Native Americans, founding a tribe of Welsh Indians – once presumed to be the actual Mandan tribe of North Dakota. According to this legend Madoc returned to Wales once. Dressel’s poem, however, fabricates a subsequent legend: that after returning, the Prince and his band of Welsh-American Indians set up camp in the hills of north Wales.
Dressel thus turns the legend on its head: instead of a band of Welsh Indians descended from Madoc and his followers surviving in the remote hills of North Dakota, there is a band of Welsh Indians surviving in the remote hills of North Wales. Just as rumors reached 18th century Wales of blue-eyed, fair-haired, fair-skinned American Indians speaking a language sprinkled with Welsh words, so too in Wales, according to the poem’s invented legend, “vague rumors spread / of a tribe of Indian Welshmen, / with dark skin, straight black hair, / and words like ‘ugh’ and ‘how’ in their / vocabulary.”
The poem’s conclusion presents a somber and poignant abandonment of culture and history by indigenous peoples in the face of defeat, dislocation, and political oppression. My paper will demonstrate that in each of these poems Dressel’s intent is not simply to parody, demythologize, and debunk mythologies in favor of “facts.” His more subtle ambition is to blend facts and mythologies with his own Welsh-American cultural inheritance to transform old myths into new hybrid versions that speak to contemporary realities.
About David Lloyd
David Lloyd teaches for the English Department and the Creative Writing Program at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, USA. His books include The Urgency of Identity: Contemporary English-language Poetry from Wales (Northwestern University Press, 1994); Writing on the Edge: Interviews with Writers and Editors of Wales (Rodopi, 1997); and Other Land: Contemporary Poems on Wales and Welsh-American Experience (Parthian Books, 2008). He is the author of two poetry collections: The Everyday Apocalypse (Three Conditions Press, 2002) and The Gospel Accoring to Frank (New American Press, 2003). He published a fiction collection, Boys: Stories and a Novella in 2004 (Syracuse University Press). In 2001 he was a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in residence at the University of Wales, Bangor, UK. He is currently the Rev. Kevin G. O’Connell, SJ, Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Le Moyne College.