Author ...Celebrating the written word |
LECTURER AND PUBLIC READER“From the ancient oral traditions of Native American tribes there comes a poetic legacy that can renew and enrich our own vanishing heritage in this technological age. That legacy represents an as-yet unwritten chapter in American literary history. Native American storytellers and the traditions they represent remind us that the sound of the human voice keeps poetry vibrant no matter what the origin. Until we learn again to hear the words of Milton and Donne, Wordsworth and Coleridge, Shelley and Keats, Longfellow and Milton, Emily Dickinson and Hilda Doolittle, they remain silent and neglected.” Professor Zolbrod has lectured and given readings at colleges and universities, museums, libraries, and other public gatherings throughout the United States and in Canada. Readings include translations from various Native American tribes including Navajo, Pueblo, Zuni, Pima, Papago, Lakota, Iroquois, Okanagan, and numerous others. Lectures deal with issues such as the nature of oral tradition in a predominantly print and media-based world; the sublimation of violence in Native American mythology; storytelling as observation, a new look at standard written poetry from a Native American perspective, Native American oral traditions and how oral storytelling expands the meaning of poetry, and other topics. Zolbrod also breathes new life into the written poetry of England and America by reading aloud lines from great poets of the past whose voices are seldom heard anymore yet still have something important to say.
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SAMPLE LECTURES “The Lost Tradition: Native Poetry in the Americas,” Chautauqua Institution “What Stories Do Navajo Textiles Tell?” Arizona State University “Taking the Myth Out of Mythology,” Museum of New Mexico “The Rosy Fingers of a Navajo Dawn: Learning While Teaching in a Reservation Community,” West Virginia University, University of Pittsburgh, Allegheny College |
Also by Paul G. Zolbrod:
