Poetry. Native American Studies. BREATHING THE MONSTER ALIVE is a multi-disciplinary meditation on faith, exploring cultural needs for a belief in the unseen, through the idiosyncrasies of the individual eye. The poems, essays, and paintings in this collection embrace the broad figure of Sasquatch/Bigfoot, and in particular, the Fouke Monster, as manifested in the unlikeliest document of faith, a low budget early `70s horror film, The Legend of Boggy Creek. The embrace of faith is wherever you find it, from roots in indigenous belief to the haunting and shrinking wilderness of this continent, and finally, here, to the flickering images across a drive-in movie screen. Eric Gansworth, (Onondaga), was born and raised at the Tuscarora Indian Nation in Western New York. His novels, Indian Summers, Smoke Dancing, Mending Skins, and collection of poetry, Nickel Eclipse: Iroquois Moon, feature paintings as integral parts of their narratives. "Eric Gansworth turns the tables on pop portrayal of something far older in human consciousness. He braves up to face this beast by traveling cross-country to the very site of initial childhood intrigue. Investigating how far humankind will go to prove the elusive, he encounters the larger monsters we invariably face. Listening to loons or more than meager things in the night are welcome curiosities in contrast. Touching on taboo takes guts. Breathing the Monster Alive takes taboo to task"--Allison Hedge Coke.
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Eric Gansworth turns the tables on pop portrayal of something far older in human consciousness. -- Allison Hedge Coke
About the Author
Eric Gansworth, an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation, was born and raised at the Tuscarora Indian Nation in Western New York. He received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in English from Buffalo State College. He is an Associate Professor of English and holds a position of Writer in Residence at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. His work includes a novel, Indian Summers, and a collection of poetry, Nickel Eclipse: Iroquois Moon; the multi-disciplinary (poems, essays, paintings) meditation on faith, BREATHING THE MONSTER ALIVE; numerous Native literature anthologies include his poetry and fiction. Eric is also an active artist and has painted the cover illustrations for a number of his books.
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It's the Images you'll Never Forget,
By zadig (Purchase, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Breathing the Monster Alive (Bright Hill Press Word & Image Series) (Paperback)
Eric Gansworth has done it again! The mind of Gansworth is a mystery to me, even after three novels and a book of poems! "Breathing" is not about reservation politics. It's not about adaptation. And it's not about Native tradition. And yet it is about all of that and more. Through the myth of big foot, Gansworth explores belief in the supernatural. At one points he draws a comparison of religious belief to that of big foot belief. And in the end, perhaps it is Belief in general that people need. As always, Gansworth doesn't give us simple answers, and he doesn't let us off the proverbial hook. One poem, "Jasper Applebee Finds Himself in the Liquidation Bin" could even be called Existential (broadly speaking).
But it's the images that you'll never forget. His paintings are once again displayed throughout the book. He takes his poetic themes and turns the brush to them. One image even sevre as a visual reference to God as Big Foot. And the imagerary in his poetry is, as usual, concrete and "catchy". If his work was a pop song, I'd still be humming the tune of the poem "Jasper Applebee Shaves for the First Time". But I still wonder... is Applebee actually the Fouke Monster?
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