Now available:
BLOOD THIRSTY SAVAGES
Poems by Adrian Louis
BLOOD THIRSTY SAVAGES is a collection that reaches to the
core of contemporary Native American life. It is an equation
of anger and survival, of acceptance and defiance brought into
delicate balance. It is a work of profound honesty, and it
ought to be read by everyone who cares to know the American
heart. -- N. Scott Momaday
BLOOD THIRSTY SAVAGES is pure American poetry at its most
powerful. These poems don't bow to any authority -- white
or Indian. Louis writes from the heart with a clarity and
an honesty that is as terrifying as it is healing. Stories
surge through these poems which strip away all the
rationalizations we Americans use to blind ourselves to
history. This is his best book yet. -- Leslie Marmon
Silko
Now available in paperback or hardcover in bookstores or
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St. Louis, Missouri 63131
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Paperback price: 12.50
A PRAYER FOR THE LOST
for Marilyn Nelson Waniek
To escape marauding in-laws
whose kids slosh Koool-Aid
against the walls of my heart
and moisten the dry-dirt memories
of my own childhood,
I slink outside carrying garbage
in two green plastic sacks
an armour them in steel drums
to baffle the blood-eyed pack
of coyotes that nightly sneaks
up from the creek.
The laundered April air
and the effervescent stars
make me forget for a moment that life
as I know it is dying and I think
I might live forever among the wild-ass Sioux.
In a neighboring house, a dope dealer's wife
holds a brown baby sprouting
from her cantaloupe breasts.
An enabling moon is rising and clattering cars
racket and rupture any dreams of true love.
In the purity of starlight, I ask Grandfather
to salvage this battered Indian nation
because my words may be no help.
Should the coyotes burst the cold
steel drums, pale white flowers would bloom.
Upon countless crumpled pages
variants of this prayer for the lost
would be found.
NOTES TO A CULTURE VULTURE
"May you walk swiftly into a midgets with buck teeth."
-- Scarecrow
Some years ago
in your infinite European boredom
you finally concluded
that maybe Indians _are_ really
a noble race, yes, somewhat tragic
but definitely tied to the earth.
So, you decided to become one.
Why not? Who would care?
And who would know the difference?
Your cheekbones _were_ a little high
and you _were_ a little dark.
Besides, everyone has an Indian passed out
in the rotting branches of their family tree.
Days sneaked into years while feathers
took root in your brain
and burst through your skull
to air-dance dry.
With your beaded words
and researched knowledge you became
well-known as a _Native American_ writer.
I envied your university job
and I used to say that you were just
another fucking white thief
stealing what little we have left
but I just bought your new book
and I liked it, a little.
Adrian C. Louis is regarded as one of the leading American
Indian poets. And enrolled member of the Lovelock Paiute
Indian tribe, he was born and raised in northern Nevada. A
former journalist, Adrian Louis has been the editor of four
tribal newspapers including the _Lakota Times_. Since 1984,
he has been teaching English at Oglala Lakota College on the
Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota.
The author of seven books of poems, he has been awarded
literary fellowships from the South Dakota Arts Council,
the Nebraska Arts Council, the Bush Foundation and the
National Endowment for the Arts. His 1989 collection of
poems, _Fire Water World_, was a winner of the Book Award
from the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University,
and his first novel, _Skins_, will be published in 1995.