SOURCE: "The Uses of Oral Tradition in Six Contemporary Native American Poets," in American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1980, pp. 87-110.

Ruppert is an American educator and critic who specializes in Native American literatures. In the following essay, he discusses Cook-Lynn's use of oral tradition in the poetry collection Then Badger Said This.

[Then Badger Said This] contains purely descriptive passages as well as oral history, but like Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain, [Cook-Lynn's] approach to history is not the cold, unimaginative one of literal history, but a highly oral process where the personal and the cultural merge. Reflective of this holistic approach to Sioux culture and history, she includes old stories, contemporary poetry, oral history, song, personal narratives and art work.

For Cook-Lynn, the past is not a cold stone tablet; it is a living vital force. As she watches the changes of the...