Ray Young Bear (born 1950 in Marshalltown, Iowa) is a Meskwaki poet and novelist. He was raised on the Meskwaki Tribal Settlement in Tama County, Iowa. He writes about contemporary Native Americans in English and in Meskwaki. The theme of his poems and other works are Native Americans' search for identity. His poems express the painful awareness of identity loss.
Young Bear's great-great grandfather, Maminwanike, purchased the land that the Meskwaki Settlement was built on.
Early life and education
Ray Young Bear was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, and raised on the Meskwaki Tribal Settlement in Iowa. It is unique as a place where in 1857 the Meskwaki bought land privately for the tribe, like other citizens, authorized by state legislation.
Ray Young Bear was raised by his maternal grandmother, No-ko-me-sa, for the first ten years of his life. Young Bear spoke Meskwaki as his first language, taught by his maternal grandmother; she also encouraged him to learn English. He was not comfortable in this language until late in high school. Ray Young Bear has taught creative writing as well as Native American Literature at The Institute of American Indian Art, Eastern Washington University, Meskwaki Indian Elementary School, the University of Iowa, and Iowa State University. He always keeps his grandmother in mind while writing. He said, "My grandmother was always giving me advice on how I should watch what I say, because she would say that the single word itself is very, very powerful."
Works
Young Bear's work has appeared in numerous magazines, including American Poetry Review, Gettysburg Review, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Parnassus, Ploughshares, and Virginia Quarterly Review.