Synopses & Reviews
Finalist, 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry
In a torrent of rage, love, and irony, Adrian C. Louis explodes all the myths and hypocrisy of Middle America in the twenty-first century. This is how Walt Whitman or Allen Ginsburg might have written about our post-9/11 world--where the realities of poverty on Indian reservations and the plight of Hurricane Katrina victims come in second place to the vagaries of Homeland Security. For Louis, both he and our nation face an uncertain future. Like many of us he is trapped in a surreal void of the present, where he is faced with middle age and isolation, the death of loved ones, an unsatisfying job, and the battle against loneliness and self-destruction. He writes as if he has nothing left to lose but then fills the page with bittersweet sorrow for everything that has been lost. Armed with unforgettable images, relentless rhythms, and a dark and scathing humor, Louis takes aim at this American life.
Review
"This book is an indigenous flower blooming among hybrid roses. Unique, daring, blowzy, fragrant with life, it is flagrant truth-telling at its deepest, funniest, saddest, and best, a book we all long to read."
--Dorianne Laux, author of Facts About the Moon
Review
"Adrian Louis has done it again. He has written poems about the reality of living in the U.S. and created timeless art." --
The Bloomsbury ReviewReview
"Adrian C. Louis is a one-man wrecking crew who will change the face of poetry until we all wake up and honor him. His visions and choice of words are rhythmic, defiant, and timeless." --
Bloomsbury ReviewReview
"Louis . . . shows us a scalded world made purer through his vision."
The New York Times Book ReviewSynopsis
2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in Poetry
About the Author
Adrian C. Louis was born and raised in Nevada and is an enrolled member of the Lovelock Paiute Tribe. Louis has written ten books of poems, mostly recently
Evil Corn (Ellis Press, 2004) and
Bone & Juice (Northwestern, 2001). He is also is the author of the novel
Skins (Ellis Press, 2002), which was made into a major motion picture in 2002, and a collection of short stories
Wild Indians & Other Creatures (Nevada, 1997). Louis has won various writing awards, among them a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the Bush Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. In 1999, he was elected to the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. He currently resides in Minnesota and teaches at Minnesota State University in Marshall.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
An E-mail to Taspan Wi
Kwe Na'a
Blue Turtle Songs
Rabbit Dance
Dreaming Beat
Magic Marker Rock Graffiti near Lolo Hot Springs, Montana
Pax Americana
At the Minnesota State College in the Winter of My Discontent
The Carcinoma Cowboy
Tomaano
A Small Drama Unfolds Ten Miles South of Kadoka, South Dakota
Deer People near Platte, South Dakota
April in Oglala
Talking to Jesus the Bug, the Last of His Race, I Think
Logorrhea
Toh Gah Kwa
To the Green Dominatrix Wading in the Wake of 9/11
Baby Blue
Electronic Epistle, or Apology to a Lady in the Bitterroots
Bitterroot Lady Again
An Archaic Photo: Two Views
The Triggering Town
Dances with Sheep
The Hurdy-Gurdy Man
Milking the Venom
In the Factory of the Mind
The Arrow Bar in Sioux Falls
Reunion Dance
The Dark Resurrection of the Son of Worm and Attendant Apocrypha
Tuba
Small-Town Harvest
Unrequited Love Among Fossils
The Indian Lit Panel
Pu Nee'e
The Last of the Saiduka
Across the Wide Missouri
Ruby Valley Song
Art Lesson
The Whiteheads in RVs
Paula White, the Blond Parson Woman Who Preaches Black
An Ode to the Eunuch Inside
A Somewhat Abbreviated History of an Indian Lycanthrope
Girls Gone Wild
Tzo Noh Hoh
Note to a Pine Ridge Girl Who Can No Longer Read
The Ceiling Mirror of Memory
The Scorpion and the Frog
Nixon and Stingers
Jesus Finds His Ghost Shirt
Bagre del Pecos
E-Nebraska Main Street Cam
The Reservation
Wabuska
E Numu Du Wi
Ghost Dogs
Our America Life