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2015 Natalie DiazQUESTIONS Topics for Composing 9. Analysis. Write an essay in which you analyze the speaker%u2019s attitude toward the subject of %u201cLooking for the Gulf Motel.%u201d You might start by considering the title of the poem. Does the speaker find what he%u2019s looking for? How do you know? 10. Speaking and Listening. Is %u201cLooking for the Gulf Motel%u201d primarily a poem about childhood memories? About the experience of immigration? Or is it impossible to disentangle those ideas? Use the poem as evidence in a classroom discussion debating how to answer these questions. 11. Creative Writing. Write a poem modeled on %u201cLooking for the Gulf Motel%u201d about vivid memories from your childhood. Chris Felver/Getty ImagesAbecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation Natalie Diaz Natalie Diaz (b. 1978) is an American poet and language activist. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community. After attending Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia on an athletic scholarship, Diaz went on to play professional basketball in Europe. She returned to Old Dominion University and earned an MFA in writing. Her debut book of poetry, When My Brother Was an Aztec (2012), powerfully evokes American Indian experiences by blending personal and mythical imagery. She currently teaches creative writing at Arizona State University and also works with the last speakers of the Mojave language to teach and revitalize it. In 2021 Diaz was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. KEY CONTEXT The poem%u2019s title identifies its form, in which each line begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. The title also employs alternative spellings of several words: %u201cAnglican%u201d (the Church of England, and likely a reference to the colonization of North America the British began with Jamestown in 1608), %u201cseraphim%u201d (the highest order of angels, in the Christian tradition), and %u201creservation.%u201d As the United States expanded during the nineteenth century, many American Indian tribes were forced off their land and onto reservations, areas of land that were often difficult to farm. In addition to the title, the poem makes references to Christianity, a religion that was often imposed on American Indians via residential schools that sought to forcibly assimilate children according to the creed of %u201ckill the Indian, save the man.%u201d Angels don%u2019t come to the reservation. Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things. Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing %u2014 death. And death eats angels, I guess, because I haven%u2019t seen an angel fly through this valley ever. Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though %u2014 he came through here one powwow and stayed, typical Indian. Sure he had wings, KEY CONTEXT The poem%u2019s title identifies its form, in which each line begins with a successive letter of 5Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.