Exploding Chippewas: Poems (Triquarterly Books) - Softcover

Mark Turcotte (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0810151235 ISBN 13: 9780810151239

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 2002

Synopsis

A collection of poems exploring a continuing struggle with identity; Everything this poet touches upon is volatile - the poet himself, the people and world around him, ideas and mythologies, the ghosts of memory and the dreams of possible futures, all seem to burst into fragments. Mark Turcotte uses poetry to gather up the pieces - the shards of joy and grief, peace and doubt, strength and temptation, questions and answers - as he tries to define and rediscover what is lost when everyday life becomes explosive. The first part of the book is a series of lyrical poems that all begin with the phrase ""Back when I used to be Indian,"" a self-contradictory concept that strikes at the heart of Turcotte's identity. His absent father and his own experience of fatherhood are the subjects of a second group of poems, leading him to explore the legacy that burdened his father and, in turn, the different kind of legacy that now burdens him. In a third and final group, Turcotte's imagination reaches again into the many flames of his experience, leading toward the title poem, where even the most dangerous of fires become a guiding light.

About this title

About the Author

MARK TURCOTTE (Turtle Mountain Band Anishinaabe) is the 6th Illinois Poet Laureate. He spent his earliest years on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and in the migrant camps of the western United States. Later, he grew up in and around Lansing, Michigan.

Arriving in Chicago in the spring of 1993 Turcotte rediscovered his love of words and writing and quickly established himself as a unique voice in the city's thriving poetry scene. That summer he was winner of the First Gwendolyn Brooks Open-mic Poetry Award.

Turcotte is author of The Feathered Heart, Songs of Our Ancestors, Road Noise, Le Chant de la Route, and Exploding Chippewas (Northwestern University Press). His work has appeared in many national and international literary journals and is included in the new and first ever Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. Turcotte was the recipient of a 2001-2002 Lannan Foundation Literary Completion Grant.

In 2008 he completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Western Michigan University. After graduation he served as the 2008-2009 Visiting Native Writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He again lives in Chicago and, since 2009, has been Senior Lecturer and Distinguished-Writer-In-Residence in the English Dept at DePaul University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0810151235
• ISBN 13: 9780810151239
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112