TPCASTTs of Poems

Title
Paraphrase
Connotation
Attitude
Shifts
Title
Theme

Root Words ~
T: The source of life and being for the Dakota people, their home grounded on identity and culture
P: The prairie grasses are like the Dakota and their language, with deep roots that keep them alive despite much oppression
C: The poem itself is an extended metaphor of the prairie grasses surviving through droughts, floods, and fires of white, colonial influence to stand tall because of its roots -- the Dakota language; the words of vast inland sea is the tradition of the Dakota, which used to be alone, and wide and powerful before colonialism; unremitting and surviving show persistence; the roots are being broken at the bottom, but they are too deep to be fully severed
A: Solemn and pensive, spiritual; sad yet resilient
S: The movement towards showing oppression that the Dakota faced is a shift, as well as at the end from English to the Dakota language.
T: The language of the Dakota is strong and ceaseless, powerful in its roots in the land
T: Language brings people together and has roots in our identities, so powerful that it cannot be lost

We Come from the Stars ~
T: Homelands and origin of the universe
P: The universe is expanding; the origin of the Dakota universe is Bdote, but the astrophysicists know that stellar nucleosynthesis expands the Milky Way; the stars are leaving; the people will remain as long as they are still in the stars, a part of the universe
C: The stars are leaving with the Dakota universe and culture; the excessive glow of cultural invasion causes mitigation of the Dakota universe; the Star people are at one with nature, complete, and bright
A: Knowing, solemn, reflective
S: The shift is from the story of creation of science to the Wicanhipi Oyate's story of origin.
T: The Dakota people have a connection to nature that is prevailing and more complete than science; they were their first
T: People's belief in their origins gives them a sense of power