SOURCE: Jaskoski, Helen. “Allen's ‘Grandmother’.” Explicator 50, no. 4 (summer 1992): 247-50.

In the following essay, Jaskoski locates Allen's poem “Grandmother” within traditional Pueblo traditions and mythology.

“grandmother”

Out of her own body she pushed silver thread, light, air and carried it carefully on the dark, flying where nothing moved. 

Out of her body she extruded shining wire, life, and wove the light on the void. 

From beyond time, beyond oak trees and bright clear water flow, she was given the work of weaving the strands of her body, her pain, her vision into creation, and the gift of having created, to disappear. 

After her the women and the men weave blankets into tales of life, memories of light and ladders, infinity-eyes, and rain. After her I sit on my laddered rain-bearing rug and mend the tear with string. 

—Paula Gunn Allen

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