Exploding Chippewas (Triquarterly Books) [Paperback]

Mark Turcotte (Author)

Book Description

Series: Triquarterly Books | Publication Date: May 22, 2002

Exploding Chippewas is a collection of poems exploring a continuing struggle with identity.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In an age where false sincerity is favored over art, Turcotte's work is a corrective. It is very strong..." -- Jim Harrison

"Mark Turcotte's work is powered by anger, hilarity, and an earthy tenderness that grabs the heart and won't let go." -- Louise Erdrich

"Turcotte's poetry feels like something...new in Native American literature, like the first step of an original and aboriginal journey." -- Sherman Alexie --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Back Cover

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. Accompanied by memories and ghosts of the past from the Native American world, he uses his marvelous gift of metaphor to take us from "the rez" through his experiences of mainstream American life. 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. His words embody a history and a linguistic power that make his poems flash with the energy of a startling vision and a dark hope. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 83 pages
• Publisher: Triquarterly; 1 edition (May 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810151235
• ISBN-13: 978-0810151239
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #593,036 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this to feel ancient America, March 6, 2008

By 

Billy Lombardo (Forest Park, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Exploding Chippewas (Triquarterly Books) (Paperback)

You can feel the wind-the beat of drums-in these poems of Mark Turcotte, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. The first section of poems, The Back When Poems all begin with the same nine words:

Back when I used to be Indian
I am...

The tumbling of tenses in these nine words repeated in the thirty-three poems of this section hint at the tumbling of time-histories both ancient and recent, and the tumbling of cultures in this collection.

The poems in the second section speak to Turcotte's very personal story of traveling to Fargo, North Dakota to see to the burial of a father he hardly knew.

You can feel the ancient history of America in this collection, and hear its drum beat pass reluctantly from the poet's father to him, and from Turcotte to his own child. These poems, which explore childhood, father and motherhood, identity and race, make you think words like wind and dreams and bones and blood belonged to the Chippewa before they belonged to us, that we're borrowing them and we should take care to use them wisely. Turcotte has done well with his.