The Summer of Black Widows

by Sherman Alexie

Overview

THE SUMMER OF BLACK WIDOWS presents poetry that has continued to grow in power, complexity, and vision. According to reviewer James R. Kincaid, "Mr. Alexie's is one of the major lyric voices of our time," and the many honors and an international following of readers from his poems, stories, and novels proves the claim. Chris Faatz from The Nation agrees, calling Alexie "a young writer who is taking the literary world by storm … a superb chronicler of the Native American experience … he is a master of language, writing beautifully, unsparingly and straight to the heart."

Poetry. Native American Studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781882413348
Publisher:	Hanging Loose Press
Publication date:	04/01/1996
Pages:	140
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

WHAT I'VE STOLEN, WHAT I'VE EARNED (Hanging Loose Press, 2013) is Sherman Alexie's 24th book. His first, THE BUSINESS OF FANCYDANCING, was published in 1992. He has won the National Book Award, an NEA Writing Fellowship, the PEN/Hemingway Award and many other honors and has been praised widely for his poetry, fiction, screenplays and inimitable personal appearances. An enrolled Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, he lives in Seattle with his wife and two sons.

Editorial Reviews

For prolific poet and novelist Alexie (First Indian on the Moon), "Indian" culture is not a frozen set-piece, but a field of vital, co-mingling influences that includes playing basketball, watching for Sasquatch or admiring Fred Astaire. His cultural pantheon is apparent in the sixth of seven "Totem Sonnets": "Lenny/ Edgar Bearchild/ Holden Caulfield/ Tess// The Misfit/ Sula/ Mazie/ Tayo// Cacciato/ Cecelina Capture/ Hamlet/ Jim Loney// Daredevil/ The Incredible Hulk." Moving among sites of personal and historical tragedy, as well as joy (the Spokane reservation in Washington State, Brooklyn's F Train, Dachau), the first-person speaker of these poems is shadowed by remembrance and loss: "On the top of Wellpinit mountain, I watch for fires, listen to a radio powered by the ghosts of 1,000 horses, shot by the United States Cavalry a century ago, last week, yesterday." While lacking the raffish elegance of Frank O'Hara (though engaging elegies for James Dean and Marilyn Monroe are included here) and with the acknowledged influence of Ted Berrigan, Alexie, at his best, opens to us the complexity and contradiction of a contemporary multicultural identity. Repeatedly invoking the liar paradox (perhaps because "Indians... don't believe in autobiography"), Alexie poses a question for all of us: "Do these confused prayers mean/ we'll live on another reservation/ in that country called Heaven?" (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The seven sections of poet/novelist Alexie's (Indian Killer, LJ 8/96) new collection are intensely elegiac, documenting ravages to a Native American identityand, one finally feels, to contemporary American identity itself. Alexie's search for meaning gives "tragic features" of "indigenous people" a sense of nobility as they struggle to maintain dignity in a world given over to hatred of the authentic. Intergenerational native dances, powwow, drum music (entertainment and prayer), and traditional song provide somber rhythm to correlate places Alexie visits with "secrets" of Native American culture always in the back of his mind. "The reservation waits for no one," Alexie concludes. "Acre by acre, it roars past history." The legacy of American history is difficult. This worthy poetry makes an important contribution to coming to terms with it.Frank Allen, North Hampton Community Coll., Tannersville, Pa.

Library Journal