Daughters, I Love You by Linda Hogan
"Daughters, I Love You" by Linda Hogan is a poignant collection of nine interrelated poems that address the profound impacts of the nuclear age, exploring themes of gentleness, strength, and environmental activism. The work can be viewed as a single, expansive poem that weaves together images and references to historical events, such as the atomic bombing of Japan and nuclear incidents in Idaho, reflecting on the violence associated with nuclear power. Dedicated to Navajo women, environmental activists, and Hogan's own daughters, the poems emphasize the nurturing and peacemaking qualities of women, portraying them as vital forces in the struggle against violence.
Hogan’s poems often juxtapose the harsh realities of nuclear destruction with acts of quiet resilience and care, illustrating a spiritual response to the destructiveness of the nuclear world. The recurring phrase "Daughters, I love you" serves as both a personal and universal affirmation of love and hope amidst turmoil. Through her work, Hogan invites readers to reflect on the interplay between memory, activism, and the enduring strength of women in the face of global challenges. This collection is not only a call to awareness but also an exploration of the quiet power found in gentleness and community.
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Subject Terms
Daughters, I Love You by Linda Hogan
First published: 1981
The Work
Daughters, I Love You is a small, tightly interwoven collection of nine poems addressing the issue of the nuclear age. The work might even be considered a single long poem in several parts all thematically centered on this issue. Linda Hogan’s dedication offers the book to Navajo women fighting environmental exploitation, to Sister Rosalie Bertell, a fellow participant at a protest encampment in South Dakota, to gentle women throughout the world, and to the author’s daughters. References to all of these women recur throughout the poems. In two of the poems the author ends with the title phrase, “Daughters, I love you.” The poems celebrate gentleness as the speaker sees gentleness as a paradoxical source of strength in opposing all forms of violence, and especially the mammoth violence of the nuclear age. Consistently the poems celebrate the peacemaking and nurturing qualities of women of all ages and throughout the world.
The poems in Daughters, I Love You frequently refer to specific events. For instance, many allude to the atomic bombing of Japan. One focuses on the site of an accident at an atomic reactor in Idaho, and at least one grew directly out of the experience of a peace encampment to protest the presence of nuclear missiles and bombs in the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota. The poet’s strategy in most of the poems is to weave related images around a central theme. For example, in “Black Hills Survival Gathering, 1980,” the image and feeling of sunrise are associated with historical memory of Hiroshima, the presence of a Buddhist monk protesting nuclear war, and the appearance of a bomber flying overhead.
While they might loosely be categorized as poems of protest, the works in Daughters, I Love You are strongly unified in the underlying spiritual dimension the author sees as the most significant response she can make to the evil of pure destructiveness represented by the nuclear world. Thus, in “A Prayer for Men and Women” the speaker counters the dreams of men for power and poison with women’s quiet work and prayers. Likewise, in “Idaho Falls, 1961” the speaker contrasts the violence of the nuclear explosion with the gentle approach of a woman going into a barn and caring for animals. This poem is also one that could be termed a poem of witness, for it records and brings to light a nuclear explosion that was downplayed in the media at a time when nuclear power was promoted as a miracle technology.
Bibliography
Ackerberg, Peggy Maddux. “Breaking Boundaries: Writing Past Gender, Genre, and Genocide in Linda Hogan.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 6, no. 3 (1994): 7-14.
Allen, Paula Gunn. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. Contains some critical analysis of Hogan’s poetry, placing her in a feminist, activist, and spiritual context and praising her for speaking out against global destruction.
Bruchac, Joseph. Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987. Good source of biographical information and of Hogan’s ideas about her poetry.
Hogan, Linda. “A heart made out of crickets’: An Interview with Linda Hogan.” Interview by Bo Scholer. The Journal of Ethnic Studies 16, no. 1 (1988): 107-117.
Hogan, Linda. “An Interview with Linda Hogan.” The Missouri Review 17, no. 2 (1994): 109-124.
Hogan, Linda. “Linda Hogan.” Interview by Patricia Clark Smith. In This Is About Vision: Interviews with Southwestern Writers, edited by William Balassi, John F. Crawford, and Annie O. Esturoy. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990.
Ruoff, A. Lavonne Brown. American Indian Literatures: An Introduction, Biblio-graphic Review, and Selected Bibliography. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1990. Brief comments on feminist and political aspects of Hogan’s work.
Swann, Brian, and Arnold Krupat, eds. I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987. In her autobiographical sketch, Hogan discusses in considerable detail the influences of both her white and her American Indian forebears on her consciousness, her sense of identity, and her writing.
Wiget, Andrew. Native American Literature. Boston: Twayne, 1985. Includes brief comments about the theme of nuclear destruction.