ABSTRACT

Let us begin with a speculation, or rather, a series of speculations-one concerning revenants, concerning Gerald Vizenor, concerning writing. There are ghosts everywhere. It makes sense, does it not, for from the beginning Vizenor’s texts remind us of the dead. The last photograph in The People Named the Chippewa (1984), taken by Vizenor himself, is of a handful of Anishinaabe grave houses on a Leech Lake reservation wooded plot, early winter. That same year, Matsushima presents us with two winter haiku:

grave birds toast the new names in stone perched on plastic flowers

and

corner diner near the railroad depot graves closed for repairs.