KENNY, Maurice (Francis) 1929-

PERSONAL: Born August 16, 1929, in Watertown, NY; son of Andrew Anthony Kenny and Doris Marie Parker Herrick Kenny Welch. Education: Attended Butler University, St. Lawrence University, and New York University. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, hiking, mountain climbing, gardening, boating.

ADDRESSES: Home—Box 1029, Saranac Lake, NY 12983

CAREER: Writer. Associate professor at Paul Smith's College, Paul Smiths, NY; University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; and North Country Community College, Saranac Lake, NY. Visiting professor at University of Oklahoma, Norman. Visiting poet, Lehigh University, spring, 1987. Coordinator of the Robert Louis Stevenson Annual Writers Conference, summers, 1987-88. Has given lectures and readings throughout the country, including New York, Minneapolis, and California. Panelist for North Carolina Arts Council, 1988; New York State Council for the Arts, 1994—; and Educational Testing Service Arts Recognition and Talent Search (Princeton, NJ). Board member, WCFE-TV, 1989-91.

MEMBER: PEN, Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines (member of board of directors, 1980-85), New York Foundation of the Arts (member of board of governors, 1990-93).

AWARDS, HONORS: Pulitzer Prize nominations, 1982, for Blackrobe: Isaac Jogues, b. March 11, 1607, d. October 18, 1646: Poems, and 1987, for Between Two Rivers; Best Anthology award, Bloomsbury Review, 1983, for Wounds beneath the Flesh; American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation, 1984, for The Mama Poems; National Public Radio Award, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1984, for Blackrobe; Cup Award, Signal, 1990; New York State Council for the Arts fellow, 1991; honorary doctorate, St. Lawrence University, 1995; Elder Recognition Award, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers, 2000; citation for achievement in the field of literature, St. Lawrence University; Hodson Award for community service.

WRITINGS:

poetry, unless otherwise noted

Dead Letters Sent, And Other Poems, Troubador Press (New York, NY), 1958.

With Love to Lesbia, Aardvark Press (New York, NY), 1959.

North: Poems of Home, Blue Cloud Quarterly Press (Marvin, SD), 1977.

Dancing Back Strong the Nation: Poems, introduction by Paula Gunn Allen with illustrations by Rokwaho (Daniel Thompson), Blue Cloud Quarterly Press (Marvin, SD), 1979.

I Am the Sun: A Lakota Chant, White Pine Press (Buffalo, NY), 1979.

Only as Far as Brooklyn, introduction by Kirby Congdon, Good Gay Poets (Boston, MA), 1979.

Kneading the Blood, drawings by Peter Jemison, Strawberry Press (New York, NY), 1981.

Blackrobe: Isaac Jogues, b. March 11, 1607, d. October 18, 1646: Poems, French translation by Huguette Lapierre, North Country Community College Press (Saranac Lake, NY), 1982, bilingual edition, Chauncey Press, 1987.

The Smell of Slaughter, Blue Cloud Quarterly Press (Marvin, SD), 1982.

Boston Tea Party, Soup (San Francisco, CA), 1982.

(Editor and author of introduction) Wounds beneath the Flesh, preface by Karl Kroeber, Blue Cloud Quarterly Press (Marvin, SD), 1983.

The Mama Poems, White Pine Press (Buffalo, NY), 1984.

Rain and Other Fictions, Blue Cloud Quarterly Press (Normal, SD), 1985, expanded edition, White Pine Press (Buffalo, NY), 1990.

Is Summer This Bear, Chauncey Press (Saranac Lake, NY), 1985.

Lewandowski, Stephen: Poacher, White Pine Press (Buffalo, NY), 1986.

Between Two Rivers: Selected Poems, White Pine Press (Buffalo, NY), 1987.

Humors and/or Not So Humorous, Swift Kick Press (Buffalo, NY), 1987.

Greyhounding This America: Poems and Dialog, foreword by William M. Kunstler, Heidelberg Graphics (Chico, CA), 1988.

Selections: Poems, edited and translated by A. Vaschenku, Korky Institute (Russia), 1988.

The Short and the Long of It, University of Arkansas Press (Little Rock, AR), 1990.

Roman Nose and Other Essays, Howe Brothers, 1991.

Last Mornings in Brooklyn (chapbook), Renegade (Norman, OK), 1991.

Tekonwatonti: Molly Brant (1735-1795): Poems of War, White Pine Press (Fredonia, NY), 1992.

On Second Thought: A Compilation, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, OK), 1995.

Tortured Skins, and Other Fictions (prose), Michigan State University Press (East Lansing, MI), 1999.

In the Time of the Present: New Poems, Michigan State University Press (East Lansing, MI), 2000.

(Editor) Stories for a Winter's Night: Short Fiction by Native Americans, White Pine Press (Buffalo, NY), 2000.

Carving Hawk: New & Selected Poems, 1953-2000, Michigan State University Press (East Lansing, MI), 2000.

Has also composed poetry for television programs, including Today in New York, NBC, 1984; and Poems, Poets, and Song, CBS, 1990; and for videos and radio programs. Consulting editor for New Voices from the Longhouse: An Anthology of Contemporary Iroquois Writing, edited by Joseph Bruchac, Greenfield Review Press (Greenfield Center, NY), 1989. Contributor to anthologies, including Native American Writing, Greenfield Review Press (Greenfield Center, NY), 1982; Harper's Book of Twentieth Century Native American Poetry, Harper (New York, NY), 1987; and American Book Award Anthology, Norton (New York, NY), 1991. Contributor to periodicals, including the New York Times, Small Press Review, American Indian Quarterly, Saturday Review, and Beloit Poetry Journal. Coeditor of Contact/II; publisher of Strawberry Press; advisory editor of S.A.I.L., Akwesasne Notes, Akwekon, and Time Capsule.

WORK IN PROGRESS: What's in a Song (tentative title), short fiction; Loons and Other Peoples: Essays in a Natural; Strangers at the Doors, short fiction; Ceremonies in Summer and Winter, poems; Black-eyed Susan (tentative title), poems.

SIDELIGHTS: Maurice Kenny has won acclaim for his poetry and his short fiction, which are informed by his Mohawk ancestry and contemporary Native American topics. Kenny's work also reflects the wide range of his life experiences, which have taken him from rural areas to the metropolitan life of Brooklyn, New York, and back again. Many of his works address the conflicts inherent in moving between such locales, and he often uses a travel motif to move his characters through their journeys of self-discovery. A strong affinity for the natural world is evident in Kenny's body of work, which is filled with descriptions of the seasons and plant and animal life.

Kenny was born in Watertown, New York. His parents separated when he was nine and divorced when he was thirteen. Kenny first went to live with his mother in New York City, later moving to upstate New York to live with his father, who was of Iroquois descent. Kenny attended Butler University, St. Lawrence University, and New York University, where he studied with the celebrated poet Louise Bogan, whom he identifies as a major influence. He worked in the theater for a while before setting out to wander the country. A series of traumatic experiences on the road contributed to an emotional breakdown, exacerbated by the tensions between his free artistic nature and the rigid cultural constraints of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Kenny's first published volume was Dead Letters Sent, And Other Poems, which appeared in 1958. He did not publish again for nearly two decades, but finally returned to the literary world in 1977 with North: Poems of Home. Since then, volumes of his poetry and fiction have been published regularly, and he received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for Blackrobe: Isaac Jogues, b. March 11, 1607, d. October 18, 1646: Poems. The award-winning book is a poetic account of the early encounters between French Jesuits and the Mohawk Iroquois in seventeenth-century North America.

Kenny won further acclaim in 1984 with the publication of The Mama Poems. The selections in the book are told from the author's own varying perspectives at certain junctures in his life while reconstructing ties with an ancestral past. In the initial pages he recounts the creation myth he learned as a youngster; later, deceased ancestors emerge to speak to him and remind him of his roots. The imagery of flora and fauna consistently grounds him in the natural world of Mohawk traditions. Kenny also intersperses his reflections on the Native American in contemporary society, and the volume concludes with an elegy to a departed mother. Joseph Bruchac, critiquing the work for the Small Press Review, remarked that "Kenny speaks in The Mama Poems with a distinctive voice, one shaped by the rhythms of Mohawk life and speech, yet one which both defines and moves beyond cultural boundaries."

Kenny's first published volume of short stories was Rain and Other Fictions. In the title piece, a Native American from the Mohawk tribe takes a road trip in a beat-up car with a Pueblo family. They are traveling to a traditional Native American rain festival in the Southwest that has evolved into a tourist attraction, and the journey forces the narrator to come to terms with his feelings of rootlessness. In another story, "Yaikini," an older Mohawk woman has a nervous breakdown in a strawberry patch as she realizes the consequences of abandoning her children years before for a wanton life in New York, NY. The dilemma of Native Americans caught between two worlds is a central theme to the collection, and Kenny uses the figurative device of travel to impart feelings of uprootedness among the characters. This is exemplified in "Leave the Driving to Us," which follows a teenager on a Greyhound bus as he journeys across states to meet his father for the first time. Writing for the Small Press Review, Daniela Gioseffi praised Kenny's work, asserting that the author "is good as a visual imagist evoking scenes with short descriptive lines and sensual similes."

Between Two Rivers, published in 1987, is a collection of Kenny's previously-published pieces. Many selections discuss the dilemmas of the writer's own personal treks as a Native American and a resident of urban America. In "Going Home," a man who has left the reservation finds a renewal of his ancestral beliefs through time spent away from his home. "Wild Strawberry" draws upon the mythical significance of the berry in Mohawk culture. On the strength of Between Two Rivers, the author was again nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Reviewing the book for World Literature Today and discussing the neglect of the author's work by scholars and popular audiences, Robert L. Berner asserted: "Kenny's is an original voice. It is time to take account of it."

Greyhounding This America: Poems and Dialog combines previously-published verse with Kenny's observations on the poems and how they were written. The poetry in the volume centers on bus trips that Kenny took across the country in the late 1970s, and he uses this forum to explore various topics, including the history of native peoples and the often ugly face of contemporary America. Samuel Maio, writing in Mid-American Review, found that Kenny's "work and philosophy, his personality and patriotism are nowhere better represented" than they are in this book. Maio was particularly impressed with Kenny's ability to sound a message of unity with all Americans, despite the tragic history that has marred relations between Native Americans and European settlers. Maio wrote, "This kind of compassion for his country—one seemingly intent on destroying his unique and ancient heritage—distinguishes the Maurice Kenny presented so colorfully in Greyhounding."

Tekonwatonti: Molly Brant (1735-1795): Poems of War is a volume of poetry that intersperses actual historical accounts of a female Mohawk military leader with a lyrical verse. Tekonwatonti, also known as Molly Brant, was the common-law wife of a British military leader who commanded Native American forces against their French adversaries in the French and Indian Wars. After his death she took up arms with her brother, Chief Joseph Brant, as they battled American Revolutionary armies in hopes of regaining the tribe's ancestral lands. Kenny sketches a biographical portrait of Tekonwatonti that depicts her important role in this period of American history, infusing it with traditional Mohawk narrative oratory and incorporating other noted Native American, British, and Revolutionary American figures. As reviewers noted, Molly Brant's role in the political sphere, like that of other Native American women of the past, has often been overlooked. Kenny's account of her life sheds new light on the place of Mohawk women both within their own society and on the battlefields of North American history.

Kenny collected stories from a wide range of cultures for inclusion in Stories for a Winter's Night: Short Fiction by Native Americans. Perspectives from the past as well as contemporary views, "evoke the full range of human emotion: Joy, sorrow, loss, survival skills and humor," remarked Yvonne Young in a Skipping Stones review of the collection. His own writing was showcased again in the collection On Second Thought: A Compilation, which includes prose and poetry published between 1956 and 1990. This collection is valuable, wrote Robert L. Berner in World Literature Today, both for the writing itself and for the illumination of Kenny's ongoing struggle to "discover an artistic identity which would reflect not only an Indian awareness but the relation of that awareness to the larger literary culture." Berner cautioned that the stories of Kenny's early, difficult years sometimes make for "painful reading," but recommended the book as a valuable record of the New York literary scene of the 1950s and 1960s, and concluded, "Anyone wishing to understand the complex interrelationship of American Indian writing and the wider literary culture of which it is so vital a part will find On Second Thought a basic resource."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Bruchac, Joseph, editor, Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets, Sun Tracks (Tucson, AZ), 1987.

Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Volume 22, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1996.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 87, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1995.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 175: Native American Writers of the United States, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1997.

Native North American Literature, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1994.

periodicals

American Book Review, March-April, 1985, review of Blackrobe: Isaac Jogues, b. March 11, 1607, d. October 18, 1646: Poems, March-April, 1985, p. 18.

American Indian Culture and Research Journal, January, 1994, Craig S. Womack, review of Tekonwatonti: Molly Brant (1735-1795): Poems of War, pp. 95-118; January, 1999, review of Blackrobe, p. 69.

Bloomsbury Review, May, 1996, review of On Second Thought, p. 3.

Choice, May, 1993, p. 1466.

Library Journal, February 1, 1993, Lisa A Mitten, review of Tekonwatonti, p. 84; November 15, 1995, review of On Second Thought, p. 74.

Mid-American Review, Volume 11, number 1, 1991.

Publishers Weekly, May 11, 1990, review of Rain, and Other Fictions, p. 254; February 7, 2000, review of Tortured Skins, p. 67.

Skipping Stones, May-August, 2001, Yvonne Young, review of Stories for a Winter's Night: Fiction by Native American Writers, p. 8.

Small Press Review, September, 1984, p. 12; April, 1987, Daniela Gioseffi, "Wild Berries," pp. 4-5.

Studies in American Indian Literature, winter, 1983, pp. 8-13; winter, 1989.

World Literature Today, autumn, 1988, Robert L. Berner, review of Between Two Rivers: Selected Poems 1956-1984, p. 709; winter, 1991, Robert L. Berner, review of Rain, and Other Fictions, p. 169; spring, 1992, Robert L. Berner, review of Last Mornings in Brooklyn, p. 387; summer, 1993, review of Tekonwatonti, pp. 649-50; spring, 1996, Robert L. Berner, review of On Second Thought: A Compilation, p. 448; spring, 2001, Elizabeth Archuleta, review of Stories for a Winter's Night, p. 408; May-August, 2005, Chad Sweeney, "An interview with Maurice Kenny."

online

Maurice Kenny Home Page, http://www.hanksville.org/storytellers/kenny (July 26, 2005).*