Poet writes about Dancing Louisa

Tears, poem flow after Temecula writer meets dancing woman

By Carl LoveRebecca Farnbach says she wrote her prize-winning poem in about 10 minutes. Sometimes inspiration works that way.

She was at a Pechanga Powwow in July 2008 when she and her husband, Darell, came across an elderly woman resting between dances. They started talking and, for about 15 minutes, the woman told how she had to abandon her American Indian heritage as a child.And:"I couldn't wait to get home to put it on paper," she said. "It was working in my head so hard that I was literally shaking."

So she produced "Dancing Louisa," a poem about a woman who grew up in a time when American Indian children could be whisked away from families and sent to schools far away by authorities who thought they were doing the right thing.Comment:  For more on Natives and poetry, see Mohawk Spoken-Word Poet and Vanished Mound Builders in The Prairies.

Below:  "Temecula writer Rebecca Farnbach has won several awards for her poem, Dancing Louisa, about a woman she saw performing at a Pechanga Powwow."