In the poem " new orleans " by joy harjo. explain how desoto can be both "buried somewhere in / this river" (lines 37–38) and "having a drink on bourbon street" (line 69).

"Woman as gold as the river bottom" means:

An analysis of the combination of the suffering of the creek and the seek of gold in Desoto's that never succeeded.

Explanation:

To understand this we need to understand that author and the background. First of all Joy Harjo was a Feminist, therefore it develops critics surrounding social gender roles in her works. In this poem and line, she develops an analysis of the ideal society has imposed to women and how it is impossible to find it because it was created in the imaginary, the suffering of women to fulfill that role, and the struggle society has as a cause of the creation of the ideal. Thus, it is a stylistic device to think about this phenomenon.