Adrian C. Louis

By the end of the twentieth century, Adrian C. Louis had become one of the most powerful voices in the canon of Native American literature. His poetry and fiction have been widely read, anthologized, and translated. Skins, first published in 1995, is now introduced with a new foreword by David Pichaske, professor of English at Southwest Minnesota State University, and Louis's personal friend and colleague.It's the early 1990s and Rudy Yellow Shirt and his brother, Mogie, are living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, home of the legendary Oglala Sioux warrior Crazy Horse. Both Vietnam veterans, the men struggle with daily life on "the rez." Rudy, a criminal investigator with the Pine Ridge Public Safety Department, frequently arrests his neighbors and friends, including his brother, who has become a rez wino.But when Rudy falls and hits his head on a rock while pursuing a suspected murderer, Iktome the trickster enters his brain.Iktome restores Rudy's youthful sexual vigor—long-lost to years of taking high blood pressure pills—and ignites his desire for political revenge via an alter ego, the "Avenging Warrior." In a violent act, the Avenging Warrior torches the local liquor store, nearly burning Mogie alive while he is hiding on the store's roof, plotting to steal booze. Although the brothers reconcile before Mogie dies, he gives the Avenging Warrior one final mission: go to Mount Rushmore and blow the nose off George Washington's granite face.In 2002, Skins made into a movie directed by Chris Eyre.

Lyman "Bean" Wilson, a half-breed Nevada Indian and middle-aged professor of journalism at Lakota University in South Dakota, is reassesing his life. The result is a string of family reconnections, sexual adventures, crises at work, pipe and sweat-lodge ceremonies, and—through his membership in the secret Ghost Dancers Society—political activism, culminating in a successful plot to blow the nose off of the George Washington statue on Mt. Rushmore.

"In ELECTRIC SNAKES, Adrian C. Louis's thirteenth poetry collection, no one is spared his critical eye, including himself. These powerful and often humorous poems cover myriad subjects: Trump, music, zombies, Jimmy John's, childhood, caller ID, venetian blinds, magpies, love, and Mom."--From the Editor

In his latest collection, Random Exorcisms, Adrian C. Louis writes poems with the rough-edged wit and heart-wrenching sincerity that make him one of the seminal voices in contemporary American poetry. Deeply rooted in Native American traditions and folklore, these poems tackle a broad range of subjects, including Facebook, zombies, horror movies, petty grievances, real grief, and pure political outrage. In a style entirely his own, Louis writes hilarious, genuine, self-deprecating poems that expel a great many demons, including any sense of isolation a reader might feel facing a harsh and lonely world. In the poem ""Necessary Exorcism,"" the speaker exorcises himself, more or less, of his grief for his deceased wife. ""I made my choice so easily & picked red drama, the joyous pain of it all,"" he writes. ""Minor Exorcism: 1984"" is one of a series of poems that contemplates the memories of small, simple mundanes, like catching a fish, until, ""My old heart is thrashing with / long-forgotten boyhood joy."" ""Dog the Bounty Hunter Blogs"" confronts some of the cruel absurdities of reality TV, while ""Naked, Midnight, Sober, Facebooking"" expels a great many fearful things, including the fear of growing older. These are poems that make you laugh and cry, nod appreciatively, and then laugh just a little more.

In his twelfth poetry collection, Adrian Louis slays Indian Country’s centuries-old demons and confronts his own grief upon losing his wife to Alzheimers, revealing a writer at his peak and a poet unafraid to take chances. There is no room for misinterpretation; his diction is as clear-cut as a logged forest. In “Archaeology”, Louis writes about the Anglo invasion of Indian Country and its loss of Native traditions, language, and history. In “Savage Sunsets”, he writes candidly about his wife’s battle with Alzheimers and how the disease steals away their waning days together. As the sun sets on his wife’s life and on Indian Country, Louis remains stalwart, a bold emissary who has lived to tell.

In a torrent of rage, love, and irony, Adrian C. Louis explodes all the myths and hypocrisy of Middle America in the twenty-first century. This is how Walt Whitman or Allen Ginsburg might have written about our post-9/11 world - where the realities of poverty on Indian reservations and the plight of Hurricane Katrina victims come in second place to the vagaries of Homeland Security. For Louis, both he and our nation face an uncertain future. Like many of us he is trapped in a surreal void of the present, where he is faced with middle age and isolation, the death of loved ones, an unsatisfying job, and the battle against loneliness and self-destruction. He writes as if he has nothing left to lose but then fills the page with bittersweet sorrow for everything that has been lost. Armed with unforgettable images, relentless rhythms, and a dark and scathing humor, Louis takes aim at this American life.

In a torrent of rage, love, and irony, Adrian C. Louis explodes all the myths and hypocrisy of Middle America in the twenty-first century. This is how Walt Whitman or Allen Ginsburg might have written about our post-9/11 world - where the realities of poverty on Indian reservations and the plight of Hurricane Katrina victims come in second place to the vagaries of Homeland Security. For Louis, both he and our nation face an uncertain future. Like many of us he is trapped in a surreal void of the present, where he is faced with middle age and isolation, the death of loved ones, an unsatisfying job, and the battle against loneliness and self-destruction. He writes as if he has nothing left to lose but then fills the page with bittersweet sorrow for everything that has been lost. Armed with unforgettable images, relentless rhythms, and a dark and scathing humor, Louis takes aim at this American life.

Adrian C. Louis's largely autobiographical verse is characterized by a bluntness born of self-irony and self-criticism. He attacks his subjects with an emotional engagement that is both tender and honest. Within the context of fallen ideals and lost spirituality among Native Americans, he composes elegies for his mentally disabled wife and describes scenes from ""Cowturdville,"" his name for the town near a reservation where he lived. Mesmerizing the reader with the rhythm of his lively lines, Louis demonstrates a stylistic strength that is both accessible and demanding. His candid portrayals of Native American life and his social and moral critique of American consumerism and conformity are darkly hilarious odes to the cultural boundaries between Americans and Native Americans.

Adrian C. Louis's largely autobiographical verse is characterized by a bluntness born of self-irony and self-criticism. He attacks his subjects with an emotional engagement that is both tender and honest. Within the context of fallen ideals and lost spirituality among Native Americans, he composes elegies for his mentally disabled wife and describes scenes from ""Cowturdville,"" his name for the town near a reservation where he lived. Mesmerizing the reader with the rhythm of his lively lines, Louis demonstrates a stylistic strength that is both accessible and demanding. His candid portrayals of Native American life and his social and moral critique of American consumerism and conformity are darkly hilarious odes to the cultural boundaries between Americans and Native Americans.

The world of acclaimed Native American poet Adrian Louis is harsh and full of pain—the blizzard-blasted plains and dusty towns of the northern Midwest, the hopeless barrenness of the Reservation, and a bleak interior world of loss, illness, and despair. Louis’s poems bring us to a place where ghosts hitchhike and the traditional pow-wow becomes an affirmation of bitter survival, where the lives of the young end too often in acts of meaningless self-destruction, and where his own existence becomes a daily battle with his cherished wife’s decline into the dementia of Alzheimer’s disease. Louis is a writer of extraordinary courage and skill, and these powerful, moving poems, wrested from the harsh experience of the Rez and his own lonely struggle with a merciless illness, will awe their readers with their brilliance and desperate humanity.