AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Esther Belin in Conversation with Manny Loley

(If you notice a mistake in the transcript, please let us know by emailing [email protected])

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Manny Loley:

(READS EXCERPT FROM “butterfly man tells a story”)

my grandmother told me
never laugh at others
because the future is unknown

Esther Belin: Welcome to the Poetry Magazine Podcast. I’m guest editor Esther Berlin. This week, I speak with Manny Loley, a Diné storyteller who writes in both the Navajo language and English. We talk about the unique poetics of the Navajo language, the inflection, the voice, the pauses, the sounds that have their own meter and rhythm. Many of these poetic qualities don’t really translate into English. The musicality and tone often changes completely. It’s something that Diné writers have to navigate, finding ways to bring out Navajo poetics when writing in English that remain distinct and true to the way we use language.

Manny Loley: English, when I really think about it, is a haunted language and a multi-layered language, and our experiences with English have been harmful, but they’ve also been helpful.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(SPEAKS in Navajo)

So good morning, I am Salt clan born for Two-who-came-to-the-water. My maternal grandparents are the bitter water. And my paternal grandparents are the towering house. I’m from a place called Where-the-water-flows through-the-rocks. And its colonized name is Casamero Lake on the New Mexico side of the Navajo Nation. But more specifically, from a spot called Where-the-trees-are-spread-out. And my grandma was telling me that it was called that because, in our community, it’s very rare to have a spot where there’s a bunch of like really green trees that are not pinyon or that aren’t juniper. And so it’s kind of like a little oasis. And we really enjoy hanging out under the trees in the shade during the summertime. And, in the English language, my name is Manny. I’m a writer, poet, storyteller, student, brother, son. And so, yeah, what else? (LAUGHS)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

I’m not a fluent Navajo speaker. I grew up on the eastern edge of the Navajo Nation with my mother, who is a single parent, and also my grandparents. And my grandparents only speak in Navajo. Like, they have the ability to speak in English, but they primarily speak in Navajo. And then my mom, she speaks in a mixture of Navajo and English, but mostly Navajo. And so growing up, I was surrounded by the language all the time. And I think one of the things that is really grounding and meaningful about the language is that it feels different inside of the body. And so, when my mom or my grandma calls me, shi yázhí, which means like, “my child,” or “my little one,” or when they use a term of endearment like [Navajo term], right, which is a term of endearment, that could mean like, “I love you.” Or it could mean like, “I haven’t seen you in a while, and I’m so glad to see you.” And so these phrases that they use, they hit differently when I hear them in Navajo rather than in English. And so, when I thought about that, and thinking about writing poetry in Navajo, that’s the kind of feeling that I want to elicit in a Navajo audience, is that feeling of coming home, and that feeling of warmth and love. Because Navajo language is very much a poetic language on its own, right? If you unpack certain words, they have so many layers. And so that’s, that’s really one of the impetuses behind why I wanted to start writing poems in Navajo. The other part of it is that I like to collect stories. So I’m in a point in my life where I want to keep stories and songs for my nephew and for my family. And so, I listen, whenever I go to a ceremony, or whenever I go to a community event where elders are speaking. I take the time to really listen to them. And sometimes I’ll write things down, just so that I can come back to them later, and figure out how to incorporate some of those teachings, some of those life lessons into my poems.

Esther Belin: So one of the things, I think, that’s really interesting about writing in Diné, in the Navajo language, is that we are still using the English alphabet. And we have to incorporate numerous diacritical marks to replicate the sound and breath of the Navajo language. You know, we talk about literary sovereignty. And I think there’s a momentum of that occurring. And I’m curious what your thoughts are around using the English alphabet to write in our own language. And I’m sure you’ve had this before, before you maybe started writing in Navajo. But when I’ve done readings, and I know other Navajo writers who’ve done readings, a common question is, “Are you writing poems in the Navajo language?” And I think even that simple question is much more complex. Especially when, you know, you hear about the responsibilities and the different types of looping that go into Diné storytelling.

Manny Loley: So, I think about my grandparents. My grandfather, who passed away last year, he used to tell me a story about when he was abducted to go to residential school. And so in his story, he tells that him and his cousin were out herding sheep, and this government van with these white government workers, they pulled up and they just told them to get in. And then they were transported to a boarding school in California. And this is my grandfather, who, at that time, only spoke Navajo, who was being transported to California, when the furthest that he had traveled from home was an hour to Gallup, New Mexico, which is on the edge of the Navajo Nation. Thinking about how he had to learn English in residential school, so that he could, quote-unquote, “become a productive member of society.” That makes me think about English as harmful, as violent, as this indoctrination into colonial society, right. But then at the same time, I think about the younger Navajo generation, who have really been drenched, for lack of a better word, in English and in Western society, and how that ability to go between the two, between Navajo society and between Western society, has allowed them to advocate for our people in spaces where English is needed to advocate. And so I think, when we think about English and poetics, English is, is a meeting place. It’s a common ground for where older people, younger people, people of different tribal experiences, like, people from urban settings, people from the reservation, we can all meet in that space and dialogue with each other and figure out how to improve our communities, how to write about a Diné poetics, not only in English, but also in Navajo. It is complicated. And sometimes it feels like there’s this pressure to write only in Navajo, but I think both are necessary, if we’re to continue moving forward in a positive way, right.

(STARTS READING “hastiin k’aalógii ’ání”)

hastiin k’aalógii ’ání
dził k’aalógiigi
haataałii ła’ kééhat’įį
     dził bits’ ąądęę’
     shił ‘ééhózin
shidíínįįd …

(FADES OUT)

(READS “Butterfly man tells a story” in English)

near butterfly mountain
lived a medicine person
     from the mountain
     i come to know myself
he told me
     from the mountain
     my name was given to me
     butterfly man
     is how i am known
     some men
     laugh at my name
     but that doesn’t bother me
         my grandmother told me
         never laugh at others
         because the future is unknown
         queer people are sacred
        we must always remember

Manny Loley: The poem “butterfly man” is inspired by an actual medicine person we visited several times. It was a very interesting experience, being in that space, because sometimes it’s difficult to speak about queerness on the reservation with tribal elders or with spiritual leaders. A large part of that difficulty comes from the difficult past that our tribal nation has had with colonization, right. So if you think about the journey of the Navajo people, on the long walk to Fort Sumner, you had a large group of people who had ancestral knowledges that existed in this land prior to the arrival of European colonizers. And you had these people that were transported—forcefully transported—to this place where they were abused, they were beaten, they were killed, all because their view of the world was radically different than the oppressor. And so these people in that concentration camp, essentially had these ideologies beaten out of them, or they were scared to adhere to ancestral knowledges, ancestral Diné knowledges. And so that fear and that anxiety and that trauma, I think that still exists in our Diné people on the reservation. But, increasingly, there are young people and cultural knowledge holders, who are becoming more comfortable talking about how the Diné thought about gender identity, thought about gender expression, from an ancestral perspective. And so the term that I use in the poem for queerness, for queer people, is nádleeh nahalinigii. And so that term, nádleeh, is harkening back to the creation stories about these beings who existed in multiple gender expressions, who were essentially put in charge of creative endeavors, right? There’s one story about these nádleeh, these ever-changing beings that were put in charge of the first dam. And so while they were watching the first dam, they invented pottery, they invented different kinds of art. And so they were very industrious people. They were very creative people. Queer people, in that sense, have always had a pivotal role in our communities. They’ve always been leaders, they’ve always been people that the community could rely on. And that’s one of the things I’m trying to evoke in that poem.

(READS EXCERPT FROM “hastiin k’aalógii ’ání” in Navajo )

náasdi doo ‘ééhózinda
nádleeh nahalinigii
diyin bee bi’dolzįį’
béédeelniihdoo

I think that’s the beauty of Diné storytelling is that, you, there’s so much freedom, there’s so much freedom and possibility to combine these older stories that are so pivotal for us to maintain and to weave them throughout our lives, right. That’s what I mean, when I say I’m a storyteller.

Esther Belin: Yeah. You know, I think that that explanation really speaks to Diné intelligence, in the sense that, our type of writing really is its own genre, if you will, because it isn’t stagnant. And, in a way, I feel like it’s more complicated. There’s a little more of a responsibility on the writer to be thoughtful and honor those stories.

Manny Loley: Yeah, I agree with that. I think the major difference between Diné storytelling, and what we might consider Western storytelling is that, in Diné storytelling, you could have one story that has multiple versions. And these multiple versions can be dictated by place. They can be dictated by a person’s age, by a person’s experience and ceremony. And so, if we think about these multiple stories, there really is no expectation of, like, evidence or like, these strict rules where it has to be a certain way. Because the stories, they’re alive, they breathe, they change over time, people add to them, people take from them what is significant for them at the time that they’re coming upon the story. And so I think that’s beautiful.

Esther Belin: I’m often humbled by our tribal creation stories. You know, I think when we are struggling, when we are looking for direction, we can just go back to those original teachings. And we see the examples. The idea of movement and continuity, really that forward-moving expression that we have as a people, to just continue on, and to be inclusive. That’s also included in a lot of our developments of our clans. We just continue to bring people in, and to celebrate that diversity. So, I’m glad that you are, and other young people, are really talking about these conversations with older folks, which I think can be difficult. And I’m curious, when you’ve had conversations within your own family, about queerness, how is that topic introduced? Is it through the Navajo lens, or through the English language, or both? Because I think they’re intertwined.

Manny Loley: So, when I was growing up, I was very fortunate to be a part of a family that has always been accepting of my identity. Even before I had the language to say that I’m a queer person, or that I’m gay, there was always the sense that they knew, and that they were understanding of it. Living on the reservation, anywhere on the Navajo Nation, that’s not always the case. And so, when I have these kinds of conversations with my family, it always takes the form of a story. In Navajo communities, in Diné communities, stories are prescriptive. Stories are medicine. So if you go to a traditional healer, there is often a lot of talking that’s involved. And there’s one particular traditional healer that I know, when she’s finished with the traditional ceremony, she always tells a story. And the story is always very focused on your predicament or your situation. And it’s meant for you to glean some kind of lesson or some kind of empathy, from the story, to use in your situation. And so my family is very much the same. When I was growing up, my mom or my grandma, they would always tell stories about different relatives or different people in the community that could be designated as gay or lesbian or queer, and how those people successfully navigated being a part of the community, right? When I’ve thought about that extensively, I always try to relate it back to the ancestral stories as well. Because in those stories, there wasn’t any kind of fanfare, or, or a big thing made out of identity, made out of a person’s gender expression. It was just kind of a normalized thing. Like, “Oh, there goes Coyote, again, and Coyote could potentially be sleeping with a man or sleeping with a woman. And it’s normalized.

Esther Belin: Yeah.

Manny Loley: It’s not pointed out as an oddity, or it’s not considered inclusion, because the word “inclusion” connotes that it’s something outside of the community that’s being indoctrinated in, when in reality, it’s always been a part of the societal fabric for Navajos, right.

Esther Belin: Mm-hmm.

Manny Loley: And I think Indigenous scholars like Leanne Simpson, they allude to this, right, Leanne Simpson has this really cool term that they call “Indigenous queer normativity,” right, that it’s normative for our communities. I, for a long time, had to talk to cultural knowledge holders, and seek out these stories about nádleeh. Or about different deities that have a variated gender expression. Because my own family, our ties to the ancestral stories, hasn’t always been the strongest. And so, I think that that spectrum of story from these community stories about people to these ancestral stories, that whole spectrum of storytelling, I think has really allowed me to, to think critically about what it means to be gay or queer or lesbian on the Navajo Nation. And I just want to point out, too, that being of these different kinds of expression, gender expressions, and identities for Navajo people is very much different than a mainstream Western kind of, like, LGBT+ kind of identity, because there are different leadership roles, there are different expectations of supporting community that are involved with it.

Esther Belin: Thanks for making those distinctions. I think, when we talk about the unique qualities of Indigenous and tribal communities within the US, there, there are multiple. You know, it makes me even more pleased that we are having this conversation. Because, I feel like this this conversation not only will speak to the broad audience, but also to the emerging Diné writers, that Diné youth, who are really grappling with stories or finding themselves with in our storytelling, and there is a place for them. So I think right now, you did a really magical thing, just validating that, validating that for us. So, what are some of the distinct roles for the queer community within the Navajo?

Manny Loley: So the story that I alluded to earlier about these figures called nádleeh, right? So when you think about that word, nádleeh, it literally represents change, ever-changing. And one of our deities is even called Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé, right? So changing woman, she’s an ever-changing woman. When we think about this role of nádleeh, in our communities, I always think about the story about the first nádleeh, who were in charge of watching over the first dam. They were watching this dam, and they had time to create things. They created pottery, they created different kinds of art forms. When I say art forms, in a Navajo context, I don’t just mean like, art for the sake of appreciation. I mean, art that is both pleasing to the eye, and something great to look at and appreciate, but also art that’s utilitarian, art that serves some kind of function in the community. And so these nádleeh, they created these art forms that were useful to the community, and that are beautiful, and that we still practice today. But it serves that dual function. And so when I think about that story, I think one of the biggest parts of queer people’s roles on the Navajo Nation is that of creators, is that of cultural knowledge holders, is that of community supporters, right. And I think about how queer people that I know have taken on those roles. There are a lot of queer people that know songs, that know ceremonies, that know stories, that know art forms. And I think that’s the biggest thing I would say is, is that creative quality, that cultural knowledge-holder position, that desire to support our people, right. And I think those are the biggest things that I would attribute to, to being queer on the Navajo Nation. From my perspective.

Esther Belin: Thank you, Manny. I’m curious, when you write, who are some of your first readers of your work? Or listeners? Do you read it out loud to a group of people or tell it as a story? How do you start that process?

Manny Loley: My first readers, or my first listeners, are my mom and my grandma. So, I’m currently living at home with my mom, and my grandma, since my grandfather passed at the end of last year. So I had to move home from Denver, to support my family and just to be there for them. My mom and I, we live in her house, and then my grandmother lives next door. But at night, my grandmother usually comes over to the house, we have dinner together. And then we usually sit around in the living room and drink tea and talk. My grandmother is a very, very gifted storyteller. So is my mom. They wouldn’t classify themselves as that, because it just comes so naturally to them. But they are. And so whenever I have a new poem—especially in Navajo, I have a new poem—I like to run it by my grandma and my mom, especially my grandma. So if I write a poem in Navajo, and I read it to my grandma, she is probably my greatest poetry teacher, because she’ll recommend different phrasings, or sometimes she’ll have a puzzled look on her face. And she’ll be like, “What are you trying to say with that? Because this is what it sounds like, but maybe there’s another way to say it.” And so oftentimes, I’ll read a story or a poem for them first and then hear their perspective, and then go from there. So that’s a way of for me of honoring them as storytellers, but also, as a way for me to make sure that any kind of cultural knowledge that I’m using isn’t being misused. Because cultural knowledge, cultural stories, they’re alive, they have a life force, they have an energy. And so, if you maybe misstep and might not use them correctly, they could have a negative impact on health or on life circumstances, right. And so, that’s just kind of like a protection for myself. The other listener that I usually read for is just the land. Out where I live, it’s very peaceful, and it’s very calm, and we’re very removed from the tight communities of urban spaces. Like, my nearest neighbor is probably like, three miles, two miles away. And so, almost every day when I’m back at home on the reservation, me, my mom and my grandma, we’ll take walks, we’ll take walks up to mesa with our dogs, just as a way for us to decompress and to maintain some semblance of physical activity.

Esther Belin: (LAUGHS)

Manny Loley: And so, when I’m walking out there on the mesa, sometimes I’ll sing a song, sometimes I’ll read a poem, or I’ll read a story. And it’s just a way for me to honor the land that has given breath to my stories. And I think that’s, that’s just something for me, something that gives me peace of mind.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Esther Belin: Thanks for that, thanks for sharing that. For our listeners, tell us a little bit about the land that you’re talking about. And what does it look like or feel like, or, the seasons like?

Manny Loley: So the area that I live is in a valley, and so on all sides of us, we’re surrounded by mountains, or the mesa, as you would call them. And it’s a very beautiful place, because in the evening time, there’s two mesas towards the east, one is a shorter one, and one is a bigger one. The shorter one is called [Navajo phrase], which means “red nose mesa.” And then the second taller mesa is called [Navajo phrase], which means “home of the crows.” And so, in the evening time, when the sun is coming onto these mesas, they glow like a brilliant red. And if you have clouds in the background of those, they also are streaked with these different kinds of colors like oranges, blues, violets, and all these different kinds of colors. And so, there’s a dirt road that leads from our house to the main county road. And then past the main county road towards the east is where those mesas are located. And so, whenever we take our walks, that’s where we walk, we walk down our dirt road, we pass the main county road, and then we ascend up the mesa. And during the summer months, especially during monsoon season, there’s these large streams of water that pour down from the mesa and kind of wrap around the area where we live. And so our road will get completely flooded. And it’s just beautiful, like the sound of the water, and also the crickets and the frogs that chirp nearby. Oftentimes, when we take a walk together, my grandmother will comment on sounds. She’ll comment on the different birds. She’s very interested in the sounds that birds make. Some of the bird noises she can imitate. And I don’t know how she does it. She just does it. And it’s very cool. Yeah, that’s just a little bit about where I’m from. The place that’s raised me.

Esther Belin: Thank you for giving us that image of the reservation, because as you’re telling that, I’m thinking of the different parts of the reservation where my family are, and I can just see it and feel it. So, one last thing. Speaking of Diné poetics, are there any specific things that you think are included in that concept, or how we should think about Diné poetics?

Manny Loley: Hm. When I sit down to think or write about Diné poetics, one of the pivotal texts that I always return to, is by the Diné poet and medicine person, Rex Lee Jim. And it’s an essay that was included in an anthology of Native American writings. And the essay is titled, “A Moment in My Life.” And so this is a really beautiful essay because Rex Lee Jim defines one of the central spiritual terms in Diné epistemology, right? And the way that he defines this term, he relates it back to language. And he relates it back to storytelling. And so one of the things that he underscores in that essay is that, the voice or the stories that we tell, they aren’t ours alone. So when I sit down to write a piece, there are multiple voices that are present, right. I am made of multiple voices. So for example, when I say my clans, the first clan that I begin with is my mother’s clan. And so I say, “I am Salt clan.” So I am essentially saying that I am my mother, I’m my grandmother, I’m her mother, her mother, her mother, so on and so on, until the beginning of Navajo time. And so when you think about it like that, the way that we construct stories, we’re always constructing stories with those voices, with those presences around us and on the page. And so, writing, at least from a Diné perspective, is never a solitary act. And it’s never something that is done lightly, right. The other thing that Rex Lee Jim points out in that essay, is that, when we think about storytelling, it essentially exists on a continuum. And so the stories that I’m telling now, the poems that I’m writing now, they could potentially be informative for someone reading it or listening to it 50 years down the line. And so then the story becomes a part of that person’s life, then it’ll become a part of another person’s life. And so there’s really no distinction, or no separation, between these ancestral stories about deities, like Changing Woman, or Talking God and Home God, right, our stories that we tell in the contemporary moment, they exist alongside those same stories. And so we’re always bundling these stories together. It’s just so interesting and beautiful and complex to think about.

Esther Belin: Oh, thank you. And you are right. I feel like Navajo writers have that continuity in that storytelling process, and the continuation, because I feel like my writing handed off to another person can hand it off to another person, and then I’ll pick up your writing or Jake’s, or Sherwin. I mean, it just all connects. And once again, I’m honored and glad to have had this conversation with you. Yeah.

Manny Loley: (SPEAKS in Navajo), Esther.

(STARTS READING “Hasísná” in Navajo)

Tóyisdzáán shimá dishníigo
Nahasdzáán shimá dishníigo
Ni’ bitł’ááhdęę hasísná
Nahasdzáán shimá …

(FADES OUT)

(READS “Emergence”)

Emergence

I call out for Water Woman, my mother
I call out for Earth Woman, my mother
I emerge from below the earth’s surface
I emerge from within sacred darkness
that cradles my mother Earth Woman’s heart
I emerge at the House-Made-of-Thought
I emerge at the House-Made-of-Language
I am home
I am home

(READING  of “Hasísná” in Navajo FADES IN)

Hooghandi nán’sdzá
Hooghandi nán’sdzá

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Esther Belin: A big thanks to Manny Loley. Loley is a Diné poet and storyteller. He is a current PhD candidate and English and Literary Arts at the University of Denver. You can read two poems by Loley in the July/August 2022 issue of Poetry, in print and online. If you’re not yet a subscriber of Poetry magazine, there’s a special rate for podcast listeners. For a limited time, you can get a full year of the magazine for $20. That’s 11 book-length issues for just $20. Visit poetry magazine.org/podcastoffer to subscribe. That’s poetry magazine.org/podcastoffer. This show is produced by Rachel James. The music in this episode came from Resavoir, Alabaster DePlume, John McCowen, Rob Mazurek, and Irreversible Entanglements. Okay, that’s it. Until next time, be well, stay safe, and thanks for listening.

(MUSIC FADES OUT)