SOURCE: "Spirit and Substance," in Poetry, Vol. CLXI, No. 6, March, 1993, pp. 339-55.

In the following excerpt, Murphy discusses various themes in Black Eagle Child, notably the search for self-identity and "the story of humanity."

Ray A. Young Bear describes Black Eagle Child as a "poetic journey" which began in 1970 when he started outlining this autobiographical work. Subtitled "The Facepaint Narratives," the book is a collection of stories in verse, prose narratives, and letters tracing the growth of Edgar Bearchild, a member of the Black Eagle Child Settlement, a "fictitious counterpart" of the Mesquakie community where Young Bear lives in central Iowa. Parts of the narrative are written in his native language, but translations are skillfully woven into the text. Perhaps because the process of writing the narratives was such a long journey, Black Eagle Child does not read like a heterogeneous compilation, but "a collage done over a...