The Last Wolf

“The Last Wolf” by Mary TallMountain was published in The Light on the Tent Wall: A Bridging in 1990. This book is one of TallMountain’s three full-length poetry collections; it was originally published by UCLA Press and reprinted by Freedom Voices in 1995. Freedom Voices also published several of TallMountain’s chapbooks, and her poems and stories have been featured in a wide variety of anthologies and periodicals. As a colleague of Paula Gunn Allen, TallMountain’s poetry falls into a genre with the controversial name “Native American Renaissance.”

“The Last Wolf” is a free-verse poem of 28 lines in four stanzas. It explores the themes of the destruction of modern society, as well as the destruction of indigenous languages. TallMountain asserts this poem is a record of a spirit vision, a part of her indigenous beliefs.

Poet Biography

Mary TallMountain was born in 1918 in Nulato, Alaska, near the Yukon River. Her mother was Russian, and Koyukon/Athabascan and her father was Scotch/Irish. When her mother became terminally ill with tuberculosis, TallMountain was adopted by her mother’s white doctor. The doctor’s wife first taught TallMountain about the Western tradition of poetry, specifically William Wordsworth. At 12 years old, TallMountain’s adoptive family moved out of Alaska.