Thirst (after Natalie Diaz)

summary

Natalie Diaz (1978-) is a Mojave poet and former basketball player. Her 2021 Pulitzer-winning collection Postcolonial Love Poem weaves together themes of sapphic love, ancestral land, and Indigenous rights. This print pays homage to Diaz’s entire collection through these excerpts from “exhibits from The American Water Museum.” I wanted the woman in the print to look Native, with a nose that reminds me of the people I love. What is in those disembodied hands is open to viewer interpretation- is it the dirt that Diaz mentions? Is it water to finally quench the woman’s thirst? Is it the emptiness of false hope? Or is it something else entirely? Reading Postcolonial Love Poem for the first time was life-changing. Diaz helped me understand that my relationship with Paula Gunn Allen’s work was not a fluke but a sign that I belonged in this Native lesbian poet family. There is a mutual appreciation of a Native woman’s body as a metaphor for ancestral landscapes. Not in an objectifying, dehumanizing way, but with the recognition that we can map our deep ancestral love for the land onto each other. Postcolonial Love Poem is an intimate portrayal of sapphic love that makes me emotional every time I read it. This is the only print in the series that does not use nature imagery, but at the same time feels so tied to the earth because of this metaphor. Diaz is also the only Native lesbian poet I’ve read who is closer to my age which creates a more intragenerational relationship. Natalie Diaz feels like the cool and aloof aunt that you only see on holidays. She gives long hugs when she sees you and asks you a lot of questions. She says very little about her own life, but you’ll take notes when she does because you want to grow up to be just like her.