19 pages • 38 minutes read
On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City
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Background
Geographical Context
The poem is set on the Boston to New York City leg of what was in 1993 Amtrak’s high-speed Metroliner service. The route, like the current Acela service, goes through Boston, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; and New Haven, Connecticut, before reaching New York. Its endpoint is Washington, D.C.
The East coast setting not only anchors the action of the poem in lived experience—it is symbolically significant. Boston played a significant role in the colonization of America and the success of the American Revolution, being the home of many American forefathers. Alexie’s poem critiques the erasure of the thousands of years of history predating the colonization of the continent, reminding the reader that America’s story did not begin when Europeans arrived.
The poem’s use of doubling and contrast comes into play through the oblique presence of the West Coast. While the speaker is physically in the east, their home and heritage are always present. It gets a direct mention when the speaker says their “little reservation out West / and at least a hundred more surrounding Spokane, / the city I pretended to call my home” (Lines 15-17) have their own Walden Ponds.
The author’s Spokane Indian ancestors were river people who lived along the banks of the Spokane and Columbia rivers, fishing, hunting, and gathering in a semi-nomadic way of life. The territory of the tribe was approximately three million acres extending through Washington, Idaho, and Montana.
The current Spokane Indian reservation is 156,000 acres in northeastern Washington. Its center is Wellpinit, the setting for Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Spokane, the city, took its name from the tribe. This juxtaposition of coasts demonstrates for the reader that the East coast is not the only place with contested history—every piece of America is a site carrying multiple stories when considered in light of the various cultures who have occupied the land. Reading that history, much like reading the poem, demands the consideration of more than one perspective.
Authorial Context
Most of Alexie’s work explores, at least in part, the complexities of identity. Native American cultural identity as a broader construction is one facet—the tighter personal aspect of lived experience is another. His life has fueled a lot of his writing. Though that is far from unique for a writer, his texts often end up doing a lot of heavy lifting, especially in terms of their position in the representation of indigenous lives.
It is important to approach the “I” in pieces like “On the Amtrak” as a persona—a speaker—and not as the unfiltered voice of Sherman Alexie, the person. Alexie plays with realism and genre—and has done so from the beginning of his career.
One of his later works is a memoir—a genre that promises some degree of truth. However, Alexie is a memoirist warns the reader about believing him, and alludes that the writer will always tell a better version, as storytelling will always be the priority over truth. This approach to truth, experience, and story is active in poems like “On the Amtrak.”
This poem is part of Alexie’s earlier works, around the time his career was gaining speed. His voice by that time was established and confident.
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By Sherman Alexie
