The Captivity of Daniel Boone Junior
“This is a crime story.”
—Susan Howe, “The Captivity and
Restoration of Mr. Mary Rowlandson,”
Birthmark: Unsettling the Wilderness
in American Literary History
captivity narratives—
after first-person accounts
throughout eighteenth and
nineteenth century frontier
american literature…
daniel boone came tumbling—
down into the american trail with
the smell of death in his nostrils
and the sound of indians wailing
for their dead young braves…
daniel boone junior—
only 17-years-old when he was
captured by the shawnee indians
and fell in love with the young
handsome chief blackfish…
this is a crime story—
in a large and violent america
with kentucky as the edge of
virginia opening up westward
thru the indian nations…
captivity narratives—
after first-person accounts
throughout eighteenth and
nineteenth century frontier
american literature…
daniel boone tumbling—
“This is a crime story.”
—Susan Howe, “The Captivity and
Restoration of Mr. Mary Rowlandson,”
Birthmark: Unsettling the Wilderness
in American Literary History
captivity narratives—
after first-person accounts
throughout eighteenth and
nineteenth century frontier
american literature…
daniel boone came tumbling—
down into the american trail with
the smell of death in his nostrils
and the sound of indians wailing
for their dead young braves…
daniel boone junior—
only 17-years-old when he was
captured by the shawnee indians
and fell in love with the young
handsome chief blackfish…
this is a crime story—
in a large and violent america
with kentucky as the edge of
virginia opening up westward
thru the indian nations…
captivity narratives—
after first-person accounts
throughout eighteenth and
nineteenth century frontier
american literature…
daniel boone tumbling—
daniel boone tumbling—
daniel boone tumbling—
daniel boone tumbling—
daniel boone tumbling—
down into the american trail
the smell of death in his nostrils
and the sound of women wailing
for their dead young lovers...
this is a crime story—
in a large and violent america
with kentucky as the edge of
vrginia opening up westward
thru the indian nations…
appalachia—amorphous hidden space
looking back with retro-narrative now
at how voice once controlled & connected
the truant love between races, between
native american indians and white trash
immigrants sweeping westward for fur,
game, hunting, fishing, trapping, then
young boone falling for chief blackfish…
often captive narratives tell the story
about families, friends and others
blaming the victim for what happened,
not trusting their redskin ways anymore,
but who had forsaken who back then?
who was this young daniel boone junior?
god’s text & boone’s text were opposite—
counterpoint, shelter, manly love that
essentially replaces scripture as closure,
hunger has no end, the old grid fails…
“this is a crime story”—
the american wild west is a large and
violent wilderness place, too large for
most euro-dialogs: “1677—I used to
remember the time, when I would go
to sleep quietly without workings in
my thoughts, whole nights together,
but now it is otherwise with me. I’m
all eyes at night—wide-open, always
alert, my thoughts worried, trying
to remember things past…”
daniel “james” boone junior—
kidnapped unwillingly (?) into the
vast uncharted Shawnee territory
and unmapped geography of North
america—an author letting himself
be pulled away into an alt version of
himself, a kentucky doppelganger,
a kentucky kid deeply in love…
young boone didn’t need to count
sheep to go to sleep, that counter-
memory was out the window, now
he was deep inside a theater of
total alienation, stammering to
himself as english left him and
shawnee words of atonement
unleashed in him the dialectical
tension between what the french
wanted—trade and coexistence,
compared with what we ended
up with & which haunts us…
the young male narrative then—
was narrating something more
like conversion than captivity,
the wilderness wasn’t wilderness
to the indians—it was their home
and the other that which was
outside yet inside them all—
holding everything together, the
wild place every human knew
as the mirror that spoke to them…
“he came to me one night—
with a basket of horse-liver. i
was so starved, give me a piece,
i said. what, says the young
indian, you can eat horse-liver?
i told him i would try, if he gave
me some, which he did, and i
ate it raw, the blood around my
mouth, yet it was savory for the
hungry soul every bitter thing is
sweet when you’re hungry, and
i sat there, blood on my lips,
savoring the taste of raw
horse-liver, later god’s seal
of ratification spilling from
my lips through my father’s
pen, but that’s when captivity
spoke, which back then was
impossible, just war-hoops
and a cute guy holding me
tight in the darkness…
these skidding stanzas—
with their idiosyncratic syntax
refusing closure, closed form,
a different line was needed
then and now, remembering
now shifts the ground beneath
me, my knees grow weak and
i become savage again, slave
and servant to the wild land,
back to the privileged moment
immediately followed by the
ancient immediacy again and
again, the deer slayer in me,
my deerskin moccasins, my
bracelets, necklaces, earrings,
nose-rings, tit-rings, heathen
gods showing their power over
me—a thing too hard for me—
splitting me in two, the way
of two spirits, the third man…
blackfish chose me—
adopted me, gave me what
was his and what wasn’t, to
revive in me the hopes he
had for rapprochement of the
tribes and now white eyes,
reviving in me the wild one,
teaching me how to forget
the old ways & learn the even
more ancient ways of the earth
the forest the streams and the
renewal of the seasons, the
little things being on the move,
the earth gathering around me,
giving giving giving to me if
only I’d give love back to it,
so that samson’s riddle could
be solved, the great promise
of romans 8.28, that out of
the eater comes forth meat,
and the sweetness out of
the strong…
daniel boone tumbling—
daniel boone tumbling—
daniel boone tumbling—
down into the american trail
the smell of death in his nostrils
and the sound of women wailing
for their dead young lovers...
this is a crime story—
in a large and violent america
with kentucky as the edge of
vrginia opening up westward
thru the indian nations…
appalachia—amorphous hidden space
looking back with retro-narrative now
at how voice once controlled & connected
the truant love between races, between
native american indians and white trash
immigrants sweeping westward for fur,
game, hunting, fishing, trapping, then
young boone falling for chief blackfish…
often captive narratives tell the story
about families, friends and others
blaming the victim for what happened,
not trusting their redskin ways anymore,
but who had forsaken who back then?
who was this young daniel boone junior?
god’s text & boone’s text were opposite—
counterpoint, shelter, manly love that
essentially replaces scripture as closure,
hunger has no end, the old grid fails…
“this is a crime story”—
the american wild west is a large and
violent wilderness place, too large for
most euro-dialogs: “1677—I used to
remember the time, when I would go
to sleep quietly without workings in
my thoughts, whole nights together,
but now it is otherwise with me. I’m
all eyes at night—wide-open, always
alert, my thoughts worried, trying
to remember things past…”
daniel “james” boone junior—
kidnapped unwillingly (?) into the
vast uncharted Shawnee territory
and unmapped geography of North
america—an author letting himself
be pulled away into an alt version of
himself, a kentucky doppelganger,
a kentucky kid deeply in love…
young boone didn’t need to count
sheep to go to sleep, that counter-
memory was out the window, now
he was deep inside a theater of
total alienation, stammering to
himself as english left him and
shawnee words of atonement
unleashed in him the dialectical
tension between what the french
wanted—trade and coexistence,
compared with what we ended
up with & which haunts us…
the young male narrative then—
was narrating something more
like conversion than captivity,
the wilderness wasn’t wilderness
to the indians—it was their home
and the other that which was
outside yet inside them all—
holding everything together, the
wild place every human knew
as the mirror that spoke to them…
“he came to me one night—
with a basket of horse-liver. i
was so starved, give me a piece,
i said. what, says the young
indian, you can eat horse-liver?
i told him i would try, if he gave
me some, which he did, and i
ate it raw, the blood around my
mouth, yet it was savory for the
hungry soul every bitter thing is
sweet when you’re hungry, and
i sat there, blood on my lips,
savoring the taste of raw
horse-liver, later god’s seal
of ratification spilling from
my lips through my father’s
pen, but that’s when captivity
spoke, which back then was
impossible, just war-hoops
and a cute guy holding me
tight in the darkness…
these skidding stanzas—
with their idiosyncratic syntax
refusing closure, closed form,
a different line was needed
then and now, remembering
now shifts the ground beneath
me, my knees grow weak and
i become savage again, slave
and servant to the wild land,
back to the privileged moment
immediately followed by the
ancient immediacy again and
again, the deer slayer in me,
my deerskin moccasins, my
bracelets, necklaces, earrings,
nose-rings, tit-rings, heathen
gods showing their power over
me—a thing too hard for me—
splitting me in two, the way
of two spirits, the third man…
blackfish chose me—
adopted me, gave me what
was his and what wasn’t, to
revive in me the hopes he
had for rapprochement of the
tribes and now white eyes,
reviving in me the wild one,
teaching me how to forget
the old ways & learn the even
more ancient ways of the earth
the forest the streams and the
renewal of the seasons, the
little things being on the move,
the earth gathering around me,
giving giving giving to me if
only I’d give love back to it,
so that samson’s riddle could
be solved, the great promise
of romans 8.28, that out of
the eater comes forth meat,
and the sweetness out of
the strong…
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