Story from Bear Country Criticism

Perhaps best known as a novelist, Silko won the Chicago Review poetry prize, soon followed by a national Pushcart prize for the best poem published in a small magazine. Although not much has been written specifically about "Story From Bear Country," many critics praise the collection, Storyteller, in which it appeared, pointing out the strong Native- American tradition from which Silko writes. Bernard A. Hirsch, writing for the American Indian Quarterly, notes how the book "lovingly maps the fertile storytelling ground from which [Silko's] art evolves." Similarly, Linda Danielson, in the Journal of the Southwest, concludes that "through the book [Silko] reclaims both personal and tribal traditions about men and women, animals and holy people, community and creativity." According to Hirsch, it is these tribal myths and stories from Native-American culture "that Silko expresses with grace and power through her melding of oral tradition and the...