Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Sherman Alexie's "Powwow Polaroid" captures a striking moment of rupture between tradition and modernity, encapsulated in the act of photographing a Native American dance. The poem is potent, imbued with symbolism and questions surrounding cultural appropriation, representation, and identity.

The setting of the poem is a powwow, a social gathering held by many different Native American communities, focused here on fancydancing. The dance is a vibrant, lively expression of culture, passed down through generations. It is a celebration, a spiritual ritual, a communal gathering-basically, it's complex and deeply meaningful. "Step-step, right foot, step-step, left foot," the poet notes, describing the intricate steps of the dance.

However, this sacred space is interrupted by the act of taking a photograph. The white woman's snapshot doesn't merely capture the dance; it freezes it, and in doing so, fundamentally changes it. "The flashbulb burned, and none of us could move," the speaker observes. This moment serves as a striking metaphor for the objectifying and often dehumanizing gaze that can be implicit in the act of cultural appropriation. The flashbulb's flash acts like a cultural stun gun, halting the dancers in their tracks and disrupting the flow of the celebration.

The immediate reaction from the crowd and the dancers underscores the violation they experience. "The crowd panicked. Most fled the stands, left the dancers not dancing and afraid." The sense of panic and fear instigated by the photograph is palpable. It turns a moment of unity and celebration into one of chaos and uncertainty, revealing how damaging an outsider's uninformed interaction with another culture can be.

Intriguingly, the white woman with the camera "raised her arms in triumph." This celebration of her 'achievement' is starkly contrasted with the emotional responses of the Native American attendees. "My four-hundred-pound aunt wept into the public address system," the speaker notes, a symbol perhaps of the collective sorrow and loss that this one act signifies. The poem ends with a simple but potent word: "forgiveness." The term is ambiguous. Is it an offering from the Native community to the insensitive photographer, or perhaps a plea from the community to itself, to find a way to navigate a world in which their culture is so frequently misunderstood and appropriated?

"Powwow Polaroid" serves as a narrative that questions the ethics of representation. It challenges the reader to consider the implications of capturing someone else's culture through a lens-literal or metaphorical-without understanding or respecting the depth and nuance of that culture. It portrays the insensitivity that can accompany the outsider's gaze, the harm that can come from reducing a rich, complex cultural practice to a mere snapshot. It calls for awareness, sensitivity, and, ultimately, forgiveness-whether given or received.

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