The outpouring of contemporary American Indian literature in the last two decades, often called the Native American Renaissance, represents for many the first opportunity to experience Native American poetry. The appreciation of traditional oral American Indian literature has been limited, hampered by poor translations and by the difficulty, even in the rare culturally sensitive and aesthetically satisfying translation, of completely conveying the original`s verse structure, tone, and syntax.

By writing in English and experimenting with European literary forms, contemporary American Indian writers have broadened their potential audience, while clearly retaining many essential characteristics of their ancestral oral traditions. For example, Pulitzer-prizewinning author N. Scott Momaday`s poetry often treats art and mortality in a manner that recalls British romantic poetry, while his poetic response to the power of natural forces recalls Cherokee oral literature. In the same way, his novels, an art form European in origin, display an eloquence that echoes the oratorical grandeur of the great nineteenth-century American Indian chiefs.