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Ofelia Zepeda. Where Clouds Are Formed. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2008. 96 pp. Paper, $14.95.
Ofelia Zepeda's latest book of poetry explores what it means to be O'odham in a rapidly changing world while at the same time invoking a deeply felt sense of O'odham identity that is tied to land and language. Within Zepeda's poetic world, land and language, along with water, are inextricably entwined and serve as recurrent tropes that structure the collection.
The book is thematically divided into three sections - "Lost Prayers," "Other Worlds," and "How to End a Season" - that link it to O'odham land and traditions. The collection's title is reflected in the first poem, "The Place Where Clouds Are Formed," which begins with the condensation of breath in the hot desert summers, moves on to winter and a depiction of snow and mist rising, and ends with rain and fog and the condensation of breath once again. This cyclical trouping of water in its various forms is threaded throughout the text, linking it to O'odham ceremonies and rituals such as the pulling down the clouds ceremony, which is evoked in later poems, "In the Midst of Songs" and "Landscape." The repetition and rhythm of "Songs" calls to mind the rhythm of a Tohono O'odham ceremonial song with images of ocean, storm, rain, and the land. In "Landscape" the shuffling walk of an old woman "in constant contact with the earth" gives way to a bilingual stanza...