"I Went into the Maverick Bar" has received considerable attention, both positive and negative. In it Snyder recognizes that his own heritage is the same as that of the people he encounters here . . . .

In the end, however, he emphasizes the difference between him and them: he denounces that cultural heritage because it has become destructive, xenophobic, and repressive. The speaker realizes that his responsibility to Turtle Island and to these people--although they are not yet ready to recognize or accept it--requires that he continue to promote his alternative vision. That this vision involves nothing short of complete social transformation is suggested by his defining the "real work" in terms of " 'What is to be done,' " the title of a major theoretical work by Lenin on the necessity of a Marxist revolution led by a vanguard party in Russia at the turn of the century.