Reservation Love Song

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Different Kinds of Love

The title of Sherman Alexie’s poem, “Reservation Love Song,” underscores the prevalence of love as major theme despite the speaker’s dark humor and the poem’s bleak tone. The word “love,” however, never appears in the poem, and the vows and actions aren’t prototypically romantic. Nonetheless, Alexie shows that it’s possible to experience love and deep connection regardless of environment or socioeconomic status.

While poem’s beginning reads ironically, with the speaker satirizing and poking fun at the typical love song or poem, the lines are also earnest. People in love do things for one another, and in Alexie’s poem, the suitor does quite a bit for their romantic interest. They buy them beer, drive them home, and offer to help them with food, housing costs, and their dental problems. A non-ironic interpretation of the poem might conclude that these gestures are sweet and nice. Instead of satirical, the poem is endearing, with the speaker demonstrating how legitimate romance might unfold in the disenfranchised conditions of the reservation. Moreover, the theme speaks to the couples’ humanity as the bleak reservation hasn’t extinguished their capacity to form a deep bond—to love despite everything.

Love often involves sacrifice, and in the poem, the speaker makes two sacrifices in Stanza 3. They stop themselves from drinking all of the alcohol and from having sex with their romantic interest’s cousins. For their beloved partner, the speaker restrains their alcohol intake and their sexual activity. Setting irony aside, in Stanza 3, love brings out the speaker’s unselfishness

In Stanzas 4 and 5, sincerity replaces irony through familial love. The blankets bring a palpable sincerity to the poem. The blankets “smell like grandmother” (Line 16), and their “powerful magic” (Line 18) arguably derives from the link to the grandma. Love is frequently powerful and magical, so the love of the grandma infuses the “old blankets” (Line 14) with love, which, in turn, wraps the speaker and their romantic interest in love. Through this love, the couple “can sleep good” (Line 19), and they “can sleep warm” (Line 20). In Stanza 5, love is expansive—extending from the grandma to the blankets to the speaker and their romantic interest.

Ownership and Loss

Loss and ownership inform the speaker’s worldview throughout the poem. In Stanza 1, the speaker’s car represents both loss and ownership. The speaker offers to take their beloved home in their “one-eyed Ford” (Line 4). Cars don’t have eyes, so Alexie uses personification when assigning human traits—eyes—to the car. The car belongs to the speaker, yet the vehicle is not in great shape as it has lost an eye and doesn’t have all of its parts.

In Stanza 2, the theme of ownership and loss continues: None of the items listed belong to the speaker or their romantic interest. The house isn’t their house but a HUD house—it belongs to the United States government agency known as Housing and Urban Development. Similarly, the food isn’t their food, but food obtained from the Bureau of Indian Affairs—another government agency. Finally, the dentist isn’t their dentist but a person provided by a third government entity, IHS or Indian Health Services. In Stanza 2, the speaker subtly underscores how reservation life has resulted in Indigenous peoples’ loss of the ability to provide for themselves. Instead of owning, supplying, or choosing their home, food, and healthcare, they must not only depend on the government but take whatever substandard provisions the government offers.

The speaker can, however, own and provide beer—although it’s arguably not the most nutritious or helpful item. The speaker also owns “old blankets” (Line 14) that “smell like grandmother” (Line 16). These items belong to the speaker, not the government. Unlike the beer, the blankets are not potentially inimical, so this owned item has a far more positive association as blankets help them and their partner sleep “good” (Line 19) and “warm” (Line 20) in the winter. The blankets demonstrate how ownership and possession can produce meaning and comfort.

Alcohol, Intoxication, and Forgetting

The poem, which ties alcohol to both intoxication and forgetting, starts with the speaker offering to buy their beloved beer. In Stanza 3, the speaker repeats their offer about alcohol. This time, they promise to “not drink it all” (Line 10). Then, in the next stanza, the speaker brings up drinking again: “If I don’t get too drunk / I can bring old blankets,” the speaker says (Lines 13-14). The recurrence of alcohol comes across as exaggerated and, thus, reinforces the ironic, satiric tone of the poem.

Conversely, the steady presence of alcohol pertains to grave issues and themes. As history and Alexie’s personal life shows, there are critical, systemic reasons as to why Indigenous people experience alcoholism disproportionately. The poem references some of these reasons. The speaker and their love interest are on a reservation managed and propped up by an apathetic, hostile government responsible for their traumatic past and present. Thus, the speaker drinks to forget the devastation and injury. Inebriation is a way for the speaker to leave their dispiriting circumstances and temporarily escape their troubles.

In the context of intoxication and forgetting, sleep serves a similar purpose. The blankets, too, help the speaker and the beloved forget—although the blanket helps them forget in a way not reliant on substances. As the blankets allow the couple to “sleep good” (Line 19) and “sleep warm” (Line 20), the blankets convey the pair to an unconscious state where, hypothetically, they can slip away from their harsh reality and go to a place where there’s “powerful magic” (Line 18). Indeed, the blankets offer a different kind of intoxication. As this intoxication doesn’t involve alcohol, it’s arguably much more benign.