Backward to Forward [Paperback]

Maurice Kenny (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1997

Controversial and thought-provoking prose pieces from this outspoken Native American writer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

In Backward to Forward, Prose Pieces, poet Maurice Kenny turns his wise attention to the essay, offering a concrete look at early American history from the American Indian perspective (Backward), and examining how the group has fared in literature (Forward). His simple explanations of such seemingly mundane topics as why Europeans and American Indians were able, for a time, to exist amicably ("In the forlorn wilderness, friendship was nothing to toss lightly aside.") belie a deep knowledge of how the subtle elements of history eventually expanded to define the very settlement of our country. With his poet's sense of timing and power, Kenny has a way of holding back, of writing softly and simply, of biding his time and then, at the right moment, shattering the calm with insight, as in the following passage from 'Roman Nose Cheyenne: A Biography': "The white man's gun did not defeat the Indian. It was the death of the buffalo which brought the Cheyenne, the Sioux (Lakota), the Arapaho, and other nations of the plains, to starvation and decline on reservation lands, those empty, sterile enclosures of stagnation and death." The words are all the more powerful, following, as they do, a relatively benign discourse on how each part of the buffalo's dead body was made useful. Though Kenny adds his opinions to history, he isn't at all light on fact. The facts show that Colonel John M. Chivington was an evil, stupid man, and sadly, it was as much stupidity as anything that caused White and American Indian blood to be spread so liberally across the plains and mountains of 1800s America. In Kenny's able hands, this tragic ignorance plods onward as relentlessly as The Oregon Trail, and is populated by several -- From Independent Publisher

About the Author

Maurice Kenny is visiting professor at the State University of New York at Potsdam. He lives in Saranac Lake in New York State's Adirondack Mountains.

Product Details

• Paperback: 170 pages
• Publisher: White Pine Press (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1877727695
• ISBN-13: 978-1877727696
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,085,854 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Cool author, light reading, disappointing text, December 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Backward to Forward (Paperback)

This is a collection of prose pieces from an artist that usually works in poetry. Possibly as a result, the pieces are short and light. The author is influenced by early 20th-century British authors who would write about pastoral things like landscapes and such. The book is divided into two parts: the first is a fact-based fictional account of individuals at a 19th-century fort in Colorado, the second part is a collection of essays on modern and historical topics. This book had a great essay on Walt Whitman's possible racism toward Natives and a wonderful essay on the vulgarity of Mount Rushmore. Nevertheless, I didn't particularly enjoy this work. ... If I met this author in person, something tells me he would be one of the coolest, most progressive guys around. But I didn't care for this particular text.