Quote from criticism of "She Had Some Horses"

"Joy Harjo's "She Had Some Horses" consists of eight stanzas punctuated by a common refrain with a coda at the end of the work. The poem, written in the form of an American Indian chant, explores a woman's struggle to shape her identity as a modern Native American living in the alien environment of Euro-American culture. The mythic image of the horse, repeated at the beginning of and between every stanza, is juxtaposed with paradoxical images and events from the speaker's life in twentieth century America. These juxtapositions not only sharply define the psychological, spiritual, and cultural conflicts at war in the woman's conscious and subconscious minds, but also build toward the speaker's self-recognition. At the end of the poem, the speaker achieves psychological and spiritual unity by accepting the contradictory sides of her psyche, thereby giving birth to a new and complete being."  


This is the first paragraph of an online essay on the poem by Pegge Bochynski.  You can access the rest of the essay at the above URL. The essay features a well-articulated thesis statement (see above) that is developed throughout the rest.  The author makes some points about the elements/themes of storytelling, American Indian mythology, naming, paradox, and survival in the poem.