Reservation Love Song

The title of Sherman Alexie’s poem, “Reservation Love Song,” reveals quite a bit about the speaker and the tone of the poem. The speaker has a sense of humor, since what follows deviates sharply from traditional love songs and poems. Much of the poem exemplifies a tongue-in-cheek, ironic tone. The speaker creates this tone by pairing the unromantic elements of reservation life with love. This seemingly odd pairing draws attention to the systemic conditions Indigenous people face. It also highlight traits like survival and endurance by showing that there remains the possibility of human connection despite disenfranchisement.

While the poem isn’t technically a love song, it is a short lyric that conveys personal feelings. The lyrical quality manifests in the intimacy between the speaker and the person addressed. The “you” in the poem is the person the speaker desires. The “love” is between the speaker and this “you.” Based on Alexie’s other work (Alexie's narrators are often males who employ sarcasm), it’s reasonable to conclude the speaker is male and the “you” is female, but Alexie doesn't assign any specific gender to either party. In Line 1, the speaker addresses their love interest directly.