On Ron Wallace’s Learning to Speak Choctaw
by Ken Hada
Learning to Speak Choctaw He rose like smoke from high grass and weeds that had taken the alley east of the Katy tracks and shuffled across the gravel road black hair, black eyes, a hundred creases in a dark brown face. A brown hand lifted as he saw my father bent under the hood of his red Chevy. "Halito, Leonard Wallace, chim achukma?" His long sleeves pulled his hands inside Khaki pockets. Dad's head remained in the motor "Hello, Earl, I'm fine. Need a ride to town?" "Jus' walkin', Captain. Headed for Red's, get me a hamburger if you spot me a quarter 'til I mow some lawns." I stopped bouncing the rubber ball off the shed, eyed the worn brogans on his feet, and glanced at Dad still buried in his Chevy. He looked at me and my beat up ball glove. "Halito, Little Wallace, you the next, Allie Reynolds?" I shrugged He grinned. "Keep throwing that ball; you be another Super Chief." Dad pulled a handful of coins from his pockets selected a silver quarter and flipped it to the old Choctaw. "Yokoke, my policeman friend. I owe you four quarters now; I know I go eat now." He moved like tall grass in an easy wind up the gravel road to the railroad track and out of sight my eyes following in his wake. "War and wine, goddamned war and wine," Dad melted back into the Chevy's engine; "Throw the ball, Son, Just keep throwin' the ball."
Ron Wallace, Oklahoma Cantos
TJMF Publishing, 2010
Used with permission
First, some historicity helps ground the poem. In the early 1800's, The Choctaw people were removed from the southeastern US to what is now Oklahoma. The word Oklahoma is a Choctaw word, and though it is usually translated as either red land or red people, it really means both people and land simultaneously. A closer translation would be “red people’s land.” Native scholar Geary Hobson explains: “In many Native American languages the words ‘people’ and ‘land’ are indistinguishable and inseparable.” And perhaps that close association has been interrupted for Earl in this poem.
Another cultural subtext in the poem recalls that Choctaws were famous Code breakers in WWII.
These considerations underscore the tragic conversation "Little Wallace" experiences in this poem. Perhaps we can say that the conversations in the poem, also need to be decoded.
Third, the poem refers to Allie Reynolds, who was a Native American of the Creek Nation, who was a six-time all-star pitcher in the Major leagues. He is a cultural hero to Native peoples, especially in Oklahoma. Earl offers a friendly comment to the boy, connecting with their shared heritage, and cultural pride.
With these thoughts in mind, let's look further at the poem:
This narrative poem presents three characters in a micro-drama – the dad, working under the hood of his chevy, and who spots the Choctaw man money for a hamburger, Earl the Choctaw man who begs the money, and the kid, "little Wallace" who observes this exchange between father and the struggling man.
The dialogue between the dad and Earl provides the essential social issue and social situation of the poem. We learn that Earl has been in war, apparently has a drinking problem, mows yards, and is friendly with the man and the boy. This is not the first time he has bummed money from the dad.
But in the process of their dialogue, the poem's emphasis shifts to focus on the kid, "Little Wallace" or at least he is brought into the significance of the poem for what it portends for the future. Stylistically, "Little Wallace" is an observer of the conversation between the two grown men, and as readers we are standing alongside him, seeing his play with the rubber ball interrupted and overhearing the adults in conversation.
Earl leaves after Dad loans him a quarter, and then we hear dad's repeated lamentation: "War and Wine" – "War and Wine" – the bitterness expressed in these lines signifies the addiction of Earl, and suggests that it is linked to his military service. After his aggravated comments, dad ends the poem by speaking directly to his son, charging him to "throw the ball, son, just keep throwin the ball."
The conflicted themes of work versus play are implied throughout the poem, conflated perhaps in the career of a few talented ones like Allie Reynolds who might get to earn a living by playing baseball. For the rest of us, work represents that adult world of financial management and heartache, while play is associated with childhood.
In those ending lines of throwing the ball, we feel the poem again shift to a deeper level: baseball is suddenly shifted to something more serious, something culturally significant – most importantly, it is psychologically a way to distract the boy from dwelling too much on what he has just witnessed. Maybe these lines represent the father's instinctive attempt to protect his son, an attempt to help him retain innocence a while longer.
The poem opens with a mystical feel, as Earl emerges "like smoke from high grass" and again, after receiving his quarter from the father, he leaves moving "like tall grass in an easy wind" until he vanishes out of sight. These passages reinforce the mystery of the poem, the questions, the confusing emotions the boy must be experiencing, the cloudy uncertainty that interrupts his playing ball.
The shifting emphasis to the boy, and away from the conversation of father and Earl makes this a defining moment in a coming of age story for "Little Wallace" – he is "learning to speak Choctaw" and in this poem, the speaking involves not only the immediate, surface conversation, but the cultural subtexts implied, both for the past and present.
POETS ON THE PLAINS HOST
Ken Hada is a poet and professor at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma where he has directed the annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival for 20 years. Ken is the author of twelve collections of poetry, including his latest: Visions for the Night (to be released April 3, 2025), and Come Before Winter, from Turning Plow Press. His previous collection, Contour Feathers (Turning Plow Press, 2021) received the Oklahoma Book Award. Other works of his have been awarded by The Western Writers of America, The National Western Heritage Museum, South Central Modern Language Association and The Oklahoma Center for the Book, and featured on "The Writer's Almanac." In addition to his poetry, Ken remains active in scholarship, writing and publishing regularly on regional writing, literary ecology and multicultural literatures. The “Ken Hada Collection” is held at the Western History Collection Library at the University of Oklahoma. Ken Hada: https://kenhada.org/ or khadakhada@gmail.com
FEATURED POET
Ron Wallace is an Oklahoma native and currently an adjunct instructor of English at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, in Durant, Oklahoma, where he was born and raised. His father served as a police officer there, rising to the rank of captain. He is the author of ten books of poetry, five of which have been finalists in the Oklahoma Book Awards with Renegade and Other Poems winning the 2018 Oklahoma Book Award. Find more at https://www.motinabooks.com/ron-wallace/
