Margo Tamez (born January 28, 1962, in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

, United States) is a historian, poet, and activist from Texas. She is a member of the Lipan Apache Band of Texas, an organization that does not have federal or state recognition. A scholar, poet, and Indigenous rights defender, Tamez grew up in South Texas, the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and along the Texas-Mexico border. Tamez's 2007 work, ''Raven Eye'', is a literary work of the American poetry form known as the 'long poem', a form developed by Norman Dubie. ''Raven Eye'' won the 2008

WILLA Literary Award WILLA Literary Award honors outstanding literature featuring women's stories, set in the Western United States, published each year. Women Writing the West (WWW), a non-profit association of writers and other professionals writing and promoting the ...

in poetry. In ''Raven Eye'', Tamez drew from Athabaskan and Nahua creation stories,

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...

, and Lipan Apache genocide narratives in combination with autobiography. ''Raven Eye'' connected the Lipan Apache oral narrative structure from the Lower Rio Grande valley and southern Texas to a literary aesthetic form that included pictorial writing and history of resistance. Her poetry is best known for stark, detailed examinations of gender violence, identity, non-recognition, genocide, and spaces of abjection (walls, the camp, death march, exile). Her prose reflects the critical views of processes and ongoing effects of fragmentation, historical erasure, and dispossession on Indigenous peoples, making crucial links between history and present forces (colonization, militarization) impacting Indigenous

self-determination The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...

in regions bifurcated by settler nation borders where those who remained in traditional places were largely ignored by the state.

Selected bibliography

Poetry and criticism

* ''Naked Wanting'' (University of Arizona Press, 2003). * ''Raven Eye'' (University of Arizona Press, 2007).
Letter to Cameron County Commission," 2 ''Crit'' 110 (2009).
* "My Mother in Her Being--Photograph ca. 1947," ''Callaloo'', Vol. 32, No. 1, Winter 2009, pp. 185–187. * "Restoring Lipan Apache Women's Laws, Lands and Strength in El Calaboz Rancheria at the Texas-Mexico Border," ''Signs'', Vol. 35, No. 3, 2010, pp. 558–569. * "Our Way of Life is Our Resistance": Indigenous Women and Anti-Imperialist Challenges to Militarization along the U.S.-Mexico Border," ''Works and Days'', Invisible Battlegrounds: Feminist Resistance in the Global Age of War and Imperialism, Susan Comfort, Editor, 57/58: Vol. 20, 2011. * ''Father/Genocide'', Turtle Point Press, 2021

Anthologies

* ''Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems Inspired by Ken Saro-Wiwa'' * ''Sister Nations'', Heid Erdrich and Laura Tohe (Editors), New Rivers Press. * ''Stories from Where We Live: The Gulf Coast'', Sara St. Antoine (Editor), Milkweed Editions. * ''Southwestern Women: New Voices'', Caitlin L. Gannon (Editor), Javelina Pr.

References

* Birnbaum, Julian

, ''Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal'', Vol. 13, No. 2, Autumn 2008.
Eagle Woman, Angelique. "The Eagle and the Condor of the Western Hemisphere: Application of International Indigenous Principles to Halt the United States Border Wall"
45 ''Idaho Law Review'', 555, (2008–2009)
Environmental Leadership Program, Fellowship Program, 'Margo Tamez'

Gilman, Denise. "Seeking Breaches in the Wall: An International Human Rights Law Challenge to the Texas-Mexico Border Wall," Texas International Law Journal, Vol. 46, pp. 257-293.

Project Muse, ''Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal'', Spring 2011, Vol. 46, Issue 2, pp 257–293.
Hanksville: Storytellers Native American Authors Online

Chandra, "Imperial Democracies, Militarised Zones, Feminist Engagements," Economic & Political Weekly, Vol XLVI No. 13, March 26, 2011.
*
T.V., "Toxic Colonialism, Environmental Justice, and Native Resistance in Silko's Almanac of the Dead," MELUS, Vol. 34, No. 2, Ethnicity and Ecocriticism (Summer, 2009), pp. 25-42.

Tamez, Margo. "Restoring Lipan Apache Women's Laws, Lands and Strength in El Calaboz Rancheria at the Texas-Mexico Border"
''Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society'', Vol 35, No.3.

External links

Interview: Conspiring with Poet Margo Tamez
* Tamez, Marg

Poetry Foundation * Tamez, Marg

Poetry Foundation * Tamez, Margo "Difficult and Blessed", ''Peace Review'', Vol. 11, Issue 3, Sept. 1999, 469–470. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tamez, Margo 1962 births Living people Poets from Texas Writers from Austin, Texas American activists American writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American writers