[upbeat music] - Hello, everybody.

My name is George Larrimore and welcome to a Conversation with Marilou Awiakta.

Marilou is an honored poet as you'll find out as we go along and she's also a tireless voice for the contributions of Native Americans in this country and particularly in the state of Tennessee.

Marilou, we're glad to have you here today.

- Thank you.

I am happy to be here.

- Marilou is a poet, as I said before, an essayist and an author of three books,   "Abiding Appalachia: Where   Mountains and Atom Meet,"   "Selu: Seeking The   Corn-Mother's Wisdom,"   and "Rising Fawn And   The Fire Mystery."

Now you've got other works coming out this year, so you're busy.

- Yes.

I'm busy.

I have four that are in process right now, three in Europe, one from Italy.

Freeland Demyss, the sculpture's using one of my poems in his environmental sculpture garden.

And they said, "When will it open, Monsieur?"

He said, "Oh, when Italy opens."

[chuckling] So it'll be open when Italy opens from the pandemic.

- And a book coming from the French.

- Book coming from the French called "Courage Is Our Memory," and then a journal POISSY première, an article about my time in France, in the mid '60s when I was with the Air Force there.

- It was a difficult year in 2020, but it was an extraordinary year at 2020 and 2021 for you.

You were recently named by the University of Tennessee, which is your alma mater, as an accomplished alumnus and in 2021, not too long ago, your archives were added to the University of Tennessee's libraries.

Then in 2020, there was a, what I think is a truly extraordinary honor, USA Today through their network of newspapers around the country, selected 500 or designated 500 American women as Women Of The Century.

Now this was part of the 2019 observation of the Centennial of the passing of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

They chose these 500 women or selected these 500 women for their accomplishments.

In the state of Tennessee there were 10 and among those 10 were you and Dolly Parton and Pat Summit and Maxine Smith.

So you were in great company.

What did you think when you heard about that?

- Well, I was overwhelmed because I had no inkling of it and it was such an honor and the neighborhood women wanted to do something for me and I said, "Oh, well, what I'd like you to do is "let's get on somebody's lawn, and each of you do something "that's your gift or art, and we'll all celebrate each other together."

So that's what we did, the whole neighborhood, all the women and the gents helped.

- Your kids must have been really proud to hear that.

- They were proud and I was too, you know, and of course, Dolly and I are both from east Tennessee.

[laughing] - Now let's talk about poetry because that's why we're here.

This is one of those impossible questions.

Why do you like poetry?

What is it about poetry that speaks to you?

- Well, first of all, I was brought up on it.

I mean, I was read to a lot or spoken to and grew up in the oral tradition.

Like most southerners, you know, people talk and they tell stories and they quote things.

And maybe more in the years I was growing up 'cause I was born in '36, was born right in the middle of the Depression.

And what people had to entertain was each other.

We had a telephone and we had a radio and a wind up Victrola so everything else was the oral tradition.

And I grew up hearing it and listening to it.

And so, and the way I, the family and the way I look at the world is as everything is poetry, because behind everything there is an invisible energy that you can perceive if you listen to it.

- I want to hear, if you don't mind, your first poem.

Now you were four years old, I believe you told me when you wrote this.

- Yeah, I was about three or four.

- Three and a half or four, okay.

So you were   a prodigy, I guess.

I'm sure your mother   thought you were.

- Well, mama, you know,   preserved the story   and would tell it and that's   part of family life too.

I think that's so important is the parents keeping the children apprised of the family stories, the family history, you know, and so.

- Read that, give us that poem, if you would please.

- Okay, we were walking along, this is my mother speaking, "Marilou, we were walking along the sidewalk "in Nashville by some neighborhood stores.

"You were about three and a half "and a Monarch butterfly died in the air "and grazed your shoulder and fell at your feet.

"And you leaned over and very carefully picked it up "and said, 'Oh little butterfly, "I wish you weren't dead, "so you could fly with other butterflies instead.'

"And then Marilou, you put it on the window ledge.

And you said, 'So nobody will step on it.'"

And I think that was the keynote of my work right there, Oh, little butterfly.

If you read anything from then till now, which is 85 years, well, no, it's 80 years, eighty-two years since I was three, but there's that sensitivity to pain and urge to move life out of harm's way.

- Gotcha.

You have a lot of friends in Memphis who will be watching this show because you've spent most of your life in Memphis and we'll get to how you ended up in Memphis in a minute.

But for those who don't know you, you are a seventh generation east Tennessean, a mountain highlander, as you call yourself.

Your heritage is Scots-Irish and Cherokee.

Now you mentioned to me that it was, it was immediately apparent to anyone looking in the mirror that you had Cherokee heritage.

Tell us about that.

- Well, when I was born, I weighed four pounds and six ounces.

I was early and they said there were six ounces of me and four pounds of blue, black hair.

And so that blue, black hair stayed with me and everyone who saw me and I saw myself that blue, black, it's a very unusual, it's that Asian black, you know, throws a blue light.

And so I had that all my life.

And not only I noticed it,   people all my life would say,   "Now, what are you?"

[laughing]   I'd say, "Oh, you're   looking at my hair, well,   I am Cherokee and   Scots-Irish," you know, but people would just flat out say, "What are you?"

- If you would please the poem "An Indian Walks In Me," if you would recite that for us.

And I think our audience will immediately understand why we want to talk about that.

- Okay and this was my poem to begin my first book of my mature years, "Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet."

And it was a poem that just came out all of the piece and it is my credo poem, and it's my promise to people to that, of what I will try to do with my work " An Indian walks in me.

"She stepped so firmly in my mind "that when I stand against the pine, "I know we share the inner light of the star "that shines on me.

"She taught me this, my Cherokee, "when I was a spindly child and rustling "in dry forest leaves.

"I heard her say 'The speak.'

"She said the same of sighing wind, "of hawk descending on the hair and mother's care "to draw the cover snug around me.

"Of blackberries warming in the sun "and copperhead coiled on the stone.

"The speak, I listened, "long before I learned "the universal turn of atoms, "I heard the spirit song that binds us all as one "and no more could I follow any rule that split my soul.

"My Cherokee left me no sign except in hair and cheek, "and this firm step of mind that seeks the whole in strength and peace."

So to take diversity, wherever it's found inside, out in the outer world and try to balance it into a into harmonic whole, is what I try to do with my work.

- Tell me about your name, Awiakta, that you chose for yourself and what it means and why you chose it?

- Well, really it, my grandfather gave it to me.

My grandfather, the Cherokee   comes through his side   and he was an ordained   Methodist minister   and a gardener,   a serious gardner.

And I worked with him in his garden.

And so we were, had a closeness and he told me one day, we were working with some corn plants and he told me that I had the nature of a deer.

He said, "You're, "you're quiet, you're extremely observant, "but you have the gaze of a deer, which is very level.

"And it's really the depth of the deer's gaze "is because it's listening because it really can't see "very well, but it's eyes, "its gaze reflect that it hears everything and you're very fleet of mind, you know, you can move fast."

So, I, at a certain point in my life, after I was married and had children and been to France and sort of gotten centered in my voice, I was reading the Gospel of Thomas, I believe, and it said, "Name the spirit that is within you.

"If you name the spirit that is within you, "it will bless you and if you ignore it, it will destroy you."

So I thought, well, my creative spirit, my grandfather gave me the Awiakta and the eye, the gaze of the deer and that seems to suit what I want to do, but I didn't just do it, I consulted my husband, my children, the elders, asked what they thought and they thought it was the thing to do and so I did.

- Recite another poem for us, would you please?

One that I particularly like "MotherRoot" and tell us a little of the history of that poem.

- Well, this poem of course is for my mother and also for my husband, Paul Thompson,   about the root that   holds you steady.

And after I say it, you want me to tell you where it is?

- Yes.

- Okay.

This poem has some kind of magnetic power, but anyway, I wrote it quietly and it was for mother and my husband, Paul.

It's called "MotherRoot."

"Creation often needs two hearts, "one to root and one to flower, "one to sustain in time of drought "and hold fast against winds of pain, "the fragile bloom that in the glory of it's hour affirms a heart unsong, unseen."

So really it's in honor of all people who are in the nurturing position or the blooming position.

And so I got a phone call one day and this voice said, "This is Alice Walker," and [gasping], 'Yes, [laughing] Ms.

Walker.'"

She said, "Well, I read a poem of yours called "'MotherRoot,' and I wondered if you would allow me "to use it in my upcoming book, 'In Search Of Our Mother's Gardens' in the title section?"

And then Gloria Steinem called me to use it.

And an Italian woman in New Jersey called me, they wanted to put it in the walk of the Fine Arts Mall at the University of California, Riverside.

And she said, "They're gonna put Virgil in the other side."

And she said it reminded her of her grandmother who took over the family business during the World War II.

And so I very discreetly said, "Well, is there an honorarium?"

And she said, "Well, we're not paying Virgil."

I said, "Okay, the company will be great."

And so that's how that, and then my French, the woman, the historian who became my translator, read the poem and wrote me directly without even meeting me.

So I don't know, there's something about it.

I'm glad you like it.

- Yeah, I do.

So just to tell a little bit about you, how you got to Memphis, your husband, your late husband, Paul, had gone to the University of Tennessee with you, gone to the University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences now, but it was the medical school then.

Was a doctor, you went in the Air Force   when he had that commitment   to fulfill, went to France,   then came back to Memphis with   the family that you had just   started and you've taught   school at Bartlett?

- Yes, yes that was my first class of school.

And Paul and I met at UT Knoxville.

He was in pre-med and he was from Milan, Tennessee, Paul Thompson.

And he was Dr. Holt's nephew.

And so we met and I had a dream to go to France because French was part of my double major and I was fluent in it and I'd worked for scholarship for years.

And then the same month I got the scholarship, Paul proposed to me.

So I was thinking about it and he said, "I tell you what," and I didn't ask him.

I mean, I was just thinking.

Seems like we thought along the same line   but anyway, he said,   "I have to do two   years military training   "so when I get   to the end of my,   "almost the end   of my residency,   "I will volunteer for the   Air Force and try to get us   to France," which   was a terrible risk.

You know, you might not be   assigned to France, but anyway   the years rolled on, but we   married and moved to Memphis and I went to work at Bartlett within a week.

- Which you wrote about.

- And I loved my students.

- Yeah, loved your students.

- Oh yes.

And Bartlett and Arlington out there was farm country and they were far scattered and brought in by a school bus.

What young people, I mean, they were just six years younger than I was and full of enthusiasm and smart.

And that was my beginning in Memphis.

My first class.

- But you had begun writing   poetry seriously then,   but you didn't   write about Memphis.

You love Memphis,   but you didn't   write about Memphis.

- Right.

- Well, Memphis is a wonderful matrix, you know, for creative people.

It's a very creative place.

And, the library had the Poetry Society of Tennessee.

There were many, Etheridge Knight, the black poet was here with the Free Peoples Workshop.

And oh, there were many, many creative people and it was a wonderful matrix, but you see, it was not my roots.

And so it was a wonderful place to work and there was a lot of support like St. Luke's Press brought out this first book.

And, but what I know in my very genes is the mountains.

The Scots-Irish, the Cherokee and the atom, which I grew up with.

- All right, let's talk about Oak Ridge now.

For those of us in our audience who perhaps don't know, during the early years of World War II, there was a race between America and the Germans to try to find, to try to split the atom, to try to create what would have been the ultimate weapon to end, they hoped, World War II and Oak Ridge got pulled into it.

You happen to, by your father having a job there, lived at Oak Ridge.

And if you would tell us about,   it was a very   secretive environment,   but a particularly formative   environment for a child   because as you've   told me while it was, you didn't ask anybody any questions about anything, and yet it was a very safe place.

And you discovered the life and the woods and your inner life while you were living there.

And also you connected your, the senses that you already had with the notion of the atom.

Tell us a little about that, please.

- Well Einstein wrote Roosevelt right before, about 1939 and said the Germans are building reactor, we better get something started right away.

So they started the Manhattan Project and picked Oak Ridge for one half of it because of the cover of the magnificent mountains and water and the character of the people, which is very strong and energetic and smart.

And so I think it was 62 square miles, the government moved in with massive machinery and money, and we lived 18 miles away, Daddy commuted, but there was this energy in the air, in that whole area.

And they fenced that area, chain-link razor wire, armed guards.

I think it was 62 square miles and then built a city for about 50,000 people there and in cemesto houses that came in a box,   two bedroom, three   bedroom, four bedroom.

And it was like mason-like, little houses built on the model of the cabins of pioneer days.

Now and so we [clearing throat] were completely free to roam.

They left woods everywhere for camouflage.

And so children, there were so many children there.

I loved having so many playmates and we just roamed the woods and everything freely because, anyone, it was well-known that anyone who molested a child, it was a federal offense and the FBI would take it up, but we could not ask what anyone's father did.

- You wrote a poem called "Weeding My Children In."

And which I'd like to ask you to recite, because that's connected with this period in your life, or sprung from it.

- Oh okay, may I sort of refresh my mind.

- Yes, of course you can, yeah.

- And so after the, we had three children and so we would always go back to the home place and it was changed of course, from my childhood.

"The cabin is a cottage now with white siding "and more rooms and flowers that bloom "around a thick and close clipped lawn.

"New houses have come along the Ridge, "not sized by alphabet this time and fine churches rise "where fields once used to be.

"Fence and boardwalk, "both have gone in the blackberries, "my children long to find no more climb the hill, "but the Atom is still there.

"An energy in a quieter way, still pulses in the air.

"And they're the same trees bending in the wind.

"When we come to stay awhile, "I tuck the children in at night with saying, "'Hear the bobwhite and whip-por-will, "call up the hallows in lonesome ways "like in the olden days when other children "like you and me, Cherokee and pioneer and mother too, listened in the dark, just like you."

- Listen, we've only got a couple of more minutes.

So I'm want to ask you, we want to ask you about this pendant that you wear around your neck and did they tell us how this connects with what you've been telling us?

And then I want to ask you to read your signature poem, if you would please, "Out Of Ashes, Peace Will Rise."

- All right.

This I designed early on in '78, when I started my work.

The deer, the white deer signifies the Cherokee story of the law of respect and in our sage, I'll tell you just the spine of it is that the Cherokee hunters were killing too many deer and the animals gathered and said, "We've got to do something about these hunters."

So the chief of the deer, the white deer, the spirit deer said, "I'll make a ceremony, "and the hunter will have to ask pardon of the deer spirit "for taking its life and express gratitude "for what it's done for him and his family.

"And I will bless the hunt, but if he doesn't do it, "the hunter, I will track him to his home and cripple him so he never can hunt again.'"

And so that is the personification signifying the law of respect.

And that is a cardinal law of nature that is in every license to hunt or fish or whatever all over America.

If you take without respect, there'll be a repercussion.

If you take with respect, there'll be balance.

So I put it, the deer in the atomic orbit to signify if we practice this law of respect everywhere, all the way down to the atom, perhaps we will be able to heal our earth and our society and live in harmony in time.

- You were asked on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima to write a poem.

If you would recite that poem for us, please.

- Yes, and this is based on   the Cherokee Trail of Tears,   the symbol of the   Cherokee Nation,   one of them is the phoenix   and the Cherokee were able to rebuild after being totally, almost totally destroyed.

And this poem I wrote, it was commissioned for the Hiroshima Memorial and read from the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel.

We all read from there.

"Our courage is our memory, out of ashes, peace will rise "if the people are resolute.

"If we are not resolute, "we will vanish and out of ashes, peace will rise.

Our courage is our memory."

And there's a new book coming out in France called "Our Courage Is Our Memory."

And that seems after the whole world has been through this pandemic, every nationality understands that principle of our courage is our memory.

We draw on our roots and our ancestors to remember how to rebuild, how to live again.

And now we have this opportunity where everyone has been very quiet and sequestered, and we have an opportunity to reset parts of society, parts of ways we do things, how we think of connection with other people.

And it's a wonderful, wonderful opportunity.

And there's so many young people and young to me means fifty and under, you know, 'cause I'm eighty-five, but who are already changing ways of doing things, spending more time off screen with nature, making a balance.

So I'm very hopeful for the future.

- Good.

Listen, Marilou Awiakta, we really appreciate you being here.

It is always a great pleasure talking with you, visiting with you.

- I appreciate it.

- And I wanted to say thank you to WKNO for giving us this great opportunity.

- Oh indeed.

You're welcome.

- Thank you all so very much for watching this tonight.

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