"To the Pine Tree" by Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, translated by Margaret Noodin

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November 14, 2020  

To the Pine Tree


Jane Johnston Schoolcraft
Zhingwaak gaa-ozhibii’aan Bamewawagezhikaquay
translated by Margaret Noodin

Zhingwaak! Zhingwaak! Ingii-ikid, – Pine! Pine! I said,

Weshki waabamag zhingwaak – The one I see, the pine

Dagoshinaan neyab, endanakiiyaan. – I return back, to my homeland.

Zhingwaak, zhingwaak nos sa! – The pine, the pine my father!

 

Azhigwa gidatisaanan – Already you are colored

Gaagige wezhaawashkozid. – Forever you are green

Mii sa naa azhigwa dagoshinaang – So we already have arrived

Bizindamig ikeyaamban – Listen in that direction

Geget sa, niminwendam – Certainly I am happy

Miinwaa, waabandamaan – And I see

Gii-ayaad awiiya waabandamaan niin – He was there I saw it myself

Zhingwaak, zhingwaak nos sa! – The pine, the pine my father!

Azhigwa gidatisaanan. – Already you are colored.

 

Gaawiin gego, gaa-waabanda’iyan – Nothing, you did show me

Dibishkoo, ezhi-naagwasiinoon – Like that, the way it looks

Zhingwaak wezhaawashkozid – Pine he is green.

Wiin eta gwanaajiwi wi – He is beautiful

Gaagige wezhaawashkozid. – Forever he is the green one.

Copyright © 2020 by Margaret Noodin. Reprinted with permission of the poet. All rights reserved. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 14, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“To the Pine Tree” appears in When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (W. W. Norton & Company, 2020). 

Jane Johnston Schoolcraft was born in 1800 in Sault Ste. Marie, in the northern Great Lakes region of what is now Michigan. She grew up speaking both Ojibwe and English and began writing poems in both languages as a teenager. Schoolcraft was the co-editor of The Muzzeniegun, or Literary Voyager and is considered to be the first known Native American woman writer. She died on May 22, 1842.

Margaret Noodin is the author of Gijigijigaaneshiinh Gikendaan: What the Chickadee Knows (Wayne State University Press, 2020). She is an assistant professor and associate dean of humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she also serves as director of the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Mequon, Wisconsin, but is home anywhere in Anishinaabewakiing.

When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry
(W. W. Norton & Company, 2020)


 
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“Autumn” by Alexander Posey
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Thanks to Heid E. Erdrich, author of Little Big Bully (Penguin Books, 2020), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a Q&A about Erdich’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year
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