Analysis Of The Book Of Medicines By Margaret Hogan

What created this narrowing circle was the European invasion of the Americas and the fear the newcomers perpetuated. In her collection of poetry The Book of Medicines, Hogan writes, “But the new people, / whatever stepped inside their shadow, / they would kill, / whatever crossed their path, / they came to fear.” In this history of violence and fear so much destruction came about in the Americas. “Humans colonizing and conquering others have a propensity for this,” Hogan reminds the reader, “for burning behind them what they cannot possess or control, as if their conflicts are not with themselves and their own way of being, but with the land itself.” Critiquing Western notions of privilege and progress, Hogan writes to create understandings

This system of forced education was used to eradicate indigenous cultures and languages, in a desperate assimilation campaign seeking to “kill the Indian and save the man.” Hogan confronts the issue within much of her work, creating characters who underscore the effects of boarding schools on indigenous communities and people. Dora-Rouge speaks to the horror of having to leave one’s family and go to the schools in Solar Storms. Having escaped the agents one year she says, “The next year, when they came again to round up children for school, I was slower. They caught me. I held to my little sister tight and wouldn’t let go. The men hit us to get us apart. It was so sad.” Later in the novel, boarding schools are mentioned again when talking about a young man named Eron. His character was raised by traditional people that “stayed to the old ways…they knew things, they believed things.” He was their “chosen one” to carry forth their traditional ways, but he was forced to go to boarding school. “When he came back from school, that’s when his troubles started,” a woman in the community points out. “At school they told him everything that he had learned was wrong, and with these two knowings, that’s when he got