MOMADAY'S DAY

posted by James Reel

    N. Scott Momaday, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his novel House Made of Dawn, is one of the recipients of the 2007 National Medal of Arts, presented last Thursday. Momaday is currently the poet laureate of Oklahoma, where he has a home; he also resides part-time in Santa Fe, and it was from there that he used to commute every week to teach here at the University of Arizona. Momaday, a Regents Professor of English, retired from the UA not long ago, and he already seems to have been forgotten hereabouts. Or so you’d think from the cultural amnesia at the local daily newspapers; neither the Star nor the Citizen has mentioned Momdaday’s award, nor, as far as I can tell, the award at all. It’s not exactly an obscure honor; this year’s other medalists include composer Morten Lauridsen, guitar pioneer Les Paul and painter Andrew Wyeth, among others.