SOURCE: "Momaday's Poetry," in his N. Scott Momaday: The Cultural and Literary Background, University of Oklahoma Press, 1985, pp. 189-254.

In the following excerpt, Schubnell discusses Momaday's poems that center on his Native American heritage, focusing in particular on part two of The Gourd Dancer.

This [essay] is devoted to Momaday's poetic statements on his American Indian heritage and his particular treatment of the American earth. Most of the poems I will discuss belong to part two of Momaday's The Gourd Dancer collection. While many of them are written in a loose style approaching prose, there are also examples of syllabic and free verse as well as one sonnet. This variety of styles suggests a greater ease of expression compared with the rigid and formalized work of Momaday's Stanford period.

Momaday on the oral tradition and the American literary canon:

That whole oral tradition which goes back probably to...