Mary TallMountain’s poetry falls into the category of the Native American Renaissance. This controversial term, coined by Kenneth Lincoln in his 1985 book of the same name, is used to describe indigenous writers who gained mainstream attention after the 1960s. Paula Gunn Allen is listed among the major figures of this literary movement and, according to TallMountain in her interview with Joseph Bruchac in 1989, “[i]t was Paula Gunn Allen who helped me discover what I really wanted to do” (Bruchac, Joseph W., and Mary Tallmountain. “WE ARE THE INBETWEENS: An Interview with Mary Tallmountain.” Studies in American Indian Literatures, vol. 1, no. 1, University of Nebraska Press, 1989, pp. 13–21).

In the 1980s and 90s, TallMountain was a part of the Tenderloin Reflection and Education Center (TREC); she cofounded and facilitated the Tenderloin Women Writers Workshop, a subgroup of the TREC. The book Until We Are Strong Together: Women Writers in the Tenderloin by Caroline E. Heller documents the activities of this subgroup. Overall, the TREC is a center for political activism and organizing. The primary, local issue on which the group focuses—the issue for which TallMountain advocated in her lifetime—is providing homeless and economically underprivileged people with a space to explore creative arts.