Shedding Skins: Four Sioux Poets

by Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Adrian C. Louis (Editor), Joel Waters, Steve Pacheco, Luke Warm Water

Overview

Here's the myth: Native Americans are people of great spiritual depth, in touch with the rhythms of the earth, rhythms that they celebrate through drumming and dancing. They love the great outdoors and are completely in tune with the natural world. They can predict the weather by glancing at the sky, or hearing a crow cry, or somehow. Who knows exactly how? The point of the myth is that Indians are, well, special. Different from white people, but in a good way.
     The four young male Native American poets whose work is brought together in this startling collection would probably raise high their middle fingers in salute to this myth. These guys and "guys" they are—don't buy into the myth. Their poems aren't about hunting and fishing or bonding with animal spirits. Their poems are about urban decay and homelessness, about loneliness and despair, about Payday Loans and 40-ounce beers, about getting enough to eat and too much to drink. And there is nothing romantic about their poetry, either. It is written in the vernacular of mean streets: often raw and coarse and vulgar, just like the lives it describes. Sure, they write about life on the reservation. However, for the Indians in their poems, life on the reservation is a lot like life in the city, but without the traffic. These poets are sick to death of the myth. You can feel it in their poems.
     These poets are bound by a common attitude as well as a common heritage. All four—Joel Waters, Steve Pacheco, Luke Warm Water, and Trevino L. Brings Plenty—are Sioux, and all four identify themselves as "Skins" (as in "Redskins"). In their poems, they grapple with their heritage, wrestling with what it means to be a Sioux and a Skin today. It's a fight to the finish.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780870138232
Publisher:	Michigan State University Press
Publication date:	01/31/2008
Series:	American Indian Studies
Pages:	124
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Adrian C. Louis was born and raised in Nevada and is an enrolled member of the Lovelock Paiute Tribe. From 1984 until 1997, he taught at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Since 1999 he has been a professor in the Southwest Minnesota State University system. He has written ten books of poems and two works of fiction. His recent collection, Logorrhea, was a finalist for the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Trevino L. Brings Plenty is a poet and musician who works and writes in Portland, Oregon. He is a singer/songwriter/guitarist for the musical ensemble The Vinos. He is a Lakota Indian, born on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. He has authored several books, including Drinking with the Rocks, Making Out with Shotguns, and Poems Madly Made in Three Days.

 

Joel Waters, an Oglala Sioux, was born on the Rosebud Reservation and was raised there and on the Pine Ridge reservation. He is currently attending the University of South Dakota as an English major. His poetry can be found in the anthologies Genocide of the Mind: New Native American Writing and Eating Fire, Tasting Blood: Breaking the Great Silence of the American Indian Holocaust.

Steve Pacheco is Mdewakanton Dakota from the Lower Sioux Indian Community near Morton, Minnesota. He works as an academic and guidance counselor/advocate for high school students from his community.

 

Luke Warm Water was born and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota, and is an Oglala Lakota (Sioux). He was the first spoken-word poet to receive an Archibald Bush Foundation individual artist fellowship in literature. He has won various Poetry Slam competitions from Oregon to Germany. His recent books of poetry include Iktomi's Uprising and On Indian Time.
 

Read an Excerpt

Shedding Skins

Four Sioux Poets

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By Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Steve Pacheco, Joel Waters, Luke Warm Water, Adrian C. Louis

Michigan State University Press

Copyright © 2008 Michigan State University
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-87013-823-2

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CHAPTER 1

TREVINO L. BRINGS PLENTY

    Here We Go Again

    I sat in a chair
    in Lucy's new apartment.
    Another lady was there
    who I never met.

    She introduced herself and said
    her name was Alicia.
    She sat at my feet facing me.
    She had blue eyes, auburn hair, fake 'n bake skin.
    She asked if I was Native American.
    I said, "Yes."
    "Native Americans are so cool," she said.
    "They are very spiritual.
    They are in touch with the earth,
    and, oh my god, there is the Great Spirit.
    You have a beautiful culture."
    "It's not all mine," I said.
    "Native Americans have so much wisdom,"
    she said and leaned closer to me.
    "Do you know any sacred stories?
    Can you tell me a story?"

    "Okay," I said.
    "This one took place in old times.
    There was a lone cavalry soldier.
    He was stationed at an abandoned
    fort in South Dakota.
    There were Lakotas not far off.
    The Lakotas watched this man
    and wondered at his strangeness.
    They saw him cleaning the fort.
    They thought he was crazy to be alone.

    Then they saw him trying to communicate
    with a wolf that had white front paws."

    Alicia interrupted me and said,
    "That is the storyline for
    Dances with Wolves."
    "Yes it is," I said.
    Then Alicia stood behind me
    and started to run her fingers
    through my hair.
    "It's unfair," she said,
    "Indian men have such beautiful hair.
    It's so dark and thick and soft.
    You are a beautiful man."
    "Thanks," I said, "But you know
    I have more of that beautiful hair
    around my cock."
    Alicia quickly pulled her hand away.
    "You're disgusting!" she screamed.
    "Maybe so," I said, "But your ideas
    of me are just as repulsive."
    Then Alicia sat on my lap and kissed my cheek.
    She stood and left the apartment.

    "There you go, Trevino," Lucy said,
    "You have a great way with the ladies."
    "Yeah, I know," I said, "The crazy ones
    come to me like flies to dog shit."


    Ghost Shirt Litany

    I wear her dead father's shirts
    which are heavier than muslin shrouds.
    He is in the ground
    from an overdose
    and I sit on green grass
    thinking which kind of
    bugs are crawling through
    his bones.

    I wear these shirts
    every day.
    They are worn out.
    Some with cigarette holes,
    some with puke stains,
    some too warm for summer.

    All these shirts
    in my closet,
    all these nights
    I pass out on the couch,
    and wake before the starlings.

    I am caged in these clothes,
    in this red world,
    in this destruction,
    in these ghost shirts.


    How to Be an Indian Male in the Early 21st Century

    You must be birthed from an Indian mother.
    She must be in her teens.
    She must come from an alcoholic lineage.
    And you must say this is so.

    You will never meet your father.
    You will grow uncertain about your manhood.
    You will be angry.
    This must be so.

    You will sit in a cafeteria,
    greasy fries and cheeseburger before you.
    You will know all these people
    are all different ideas.
    All these people will never leave.

    A bearded white man sitting twenty feet away
    will look you over.
    He will wonder at your cheekbones,
    your long hair in a ponytail,
    your dark brown skin.
    He will want to ask what tribe you are.

    He will feel sorry for you
    and your people's history.
    He will imagine you half naked
    like what he saw on TV last night
    and what he has read in his large
    Western novel collection.

    He will hate you
    because you don't fit his model.

    You will see this bearded white man.
    You know he is watching you.
    You will imagine him in the same
    period clothes as he was with you.

    You will feel sorry for him.
    You will sip your water in a clear plastic cup.
    You will imagine the bearded white man
    wearing buckled shoes, tan stockings, knickers, puffy shirt,
    vest, topcoat, and a large-brim hat.

    You will wonder when his glory days
    ever began. You know he smells foul.
    The white man has maybe bathed once a year.
    This was the strange custom of white people.
    You will start to mimic the way he is eating
    and sound out the strange nuances of his language.
    It will anger you when you look around
    the cafeteria and see mostly white people.

    The white woman five feet away wearing a yellow dress
    and dipping bread into her soup will see you.
    She will want to take home a dark man.
    She will hate you
    because her husband is white.
    Her life is easy,
    it has to be.
    She has two white children.
    She will leave this family.
    She will use you.
    She will break your heart.

    But she doesn't do this to hurt you;
    she does this to leave her unhappy marriage.

    You see this white woman in a yellow dress.
    Her wedding ring is very expensive.
    You imagine her wearing a low-cut red dress.
    You imagine her leaving her family.
    She must be unhappy with her life.
    You know she is watching you.
    You know you must end her marriage.
    You will be in your late thirties.
    The anger you had all your life
    will eat you alive.
    You will drink heavily.
    You will not care
    when your mother calls long-distance.
    You will let your answering machine pick her up.

    You will die from a fatal injury.
    This must be so, but not until diabetes sets
    in your body and most of your sight is gone.
    You will be a dead Indian male underground.
    All the noise you had in your head
    will finally be silenced.

    This could be one end to your story.


    To Rid the Egg

    It wasn't long ago
    third world reservations
    destroyed hope
    in the newest generation's possibilities.

    In the '70s
    my mother was damn lucky
    she was not
    sterilized by IHS butchers.

    My mother,
    a brown woman,
    birthing U.S. enemies;

    brown children
    that grew up
    in urban California.

    Here I am
    years later
    waking to new information
    on the death of my genes,
    death of my land.

    Making it out
    of the doubt
    I had in my facial structure

    I say now it was luck,
    but really it was
    survival. empty space

    My mother saving
    her grace in the children
    she nourished
    while piecing together
    who she was
    in a manifest destiny world.

    Mothers are creators
    of what we are;
    part history,
    part failure,
    part discovery,
    part resolution,
    all fire.

    Indian women
    birth those who will
    demolish
    this monster
    that controls all.

    This machine
    created
    to liquidate
    brown people.

    In the U.S.
    my mother survived
    sterilization empty space
    by empty space
    secret legislature, empty space.


    The Question

    We lived in San Jose, CA
    on welfare, commodities, WIC.
    Found broken toys and ill-fitted clothes
    at a Goodwill drop-off.
    I attended mostly all white schools.
    I hated my coarse black hair,
    my large cheekbones, brown skin,
    and very Indian sounding name.
    We lived off of the city,
    ate $1.50 tacos with diet soda,
    and on weekends with family,
    partied until early morning crying fits.
    My mother's mother drank herself to death.
    My mother's father chose homelessness
    and pushed a shopping cart.
    My uncles would sit in a back room
    cooking up heroin or hubba rocks.
    Indians in a city, that's what we were,
    powwows in college gyms,
    moving every year into different motels
    or cheap rooming houses by railroad tracks
    kept warm by open oven heat.
    TV, public transit, white families
    every year giving us used board games, clothes, food
    while me and my siblings hid in a closet,
    watching them wanting to help an Indian family
    not struggle.
    To be Indian is not to be a savior for white people.
    To be Indian in a city is not tragic.
    And now you ask me where I am from.
    I understand your question,
    but will answer it with, "Next question."
    Alive in America is all we are.
    Let's leave it at that.


    No Eyes

    1.

    My grandfather had his eyes stolen.
    He said they were
    in a Smithsonian Museum.
    The last image he saw
    was a blond-haired woman
    bending over him.
    He was newly back from Japan,
    he was still wearing his WWII uniform.
    He said it wasn't a good thing,
    but he was sadly satisfied his eyes
    were set next to his grandparents' bones.

    2.

    My grandfather was a brakeman
    in his late teens.
    When he lost his left pinkie finger,
    he quit and joined the army.
    "There were a lot of Indians
    in the army," he said,
    "We were seen as American heroes
    when we wore our uniforms."
    He said,
    "Know this, grandson,
    the people were not all warriors.
    My cousin was a painter and storyteller,
    my brother was a fisherman,
    my sister tamed horses,
    everyone ate food, breathed air, drank water.
    This is the family lineage."
    My grandfather rolled a cigarette.
    He was wearing sunglasses.
    It was evening just before supper.
    "Every man wants to huff and puff
    their warriorness," he said,
    "But the real work is peace."


    To Find the Indian Wisdom

    She is a lingerie model.
    She has orgasms for money.
    I am Native American, an Indian, to be precise.
    Sex for money, this keeps our rent and food going.
    She thought because I am Indian,
    I come with extra knowledge/wisdom.
    She wants me to be the earth she walks,
    this is not how it is.
    I am a man who is not earth.
    I am a man who is in need as anybody else.
    I accept her work and that is all.
    To her, I am well-grounded,
    not that I have feelings, in fact
    there is no feeling when the job is sex.
    I am dead and I am dead.
    I am a man, but really another consumer.
    We all fool ourselves with love.
    I hate her for what she does,
    but she pays the rent and keeps me alive.
    Besides, what's the point of living anyways,
    to be hollow in what I believe and want day and night?
    NO. KEEP SELF ALIVE ONLY.
    THERE IS NOTHING ELSE.
    I am an idea, she is a woman,
    both don't work when money is exchanged.
    After our last fight,
    I kicked her out the door
    and threw five dollars at her.
    She was worth her full pay
    and I gave it to her.
    She is gone and I am alive.
    What more can you ask.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Shedding Skins by Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Steve Pacheco, Joel Waters, Luke Warm Water, Adrian C. Louis. Copyright © 2008 Michigan State University. Excerpted by permission of Michigan State University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction,
Trevino L. Brings Plenty,
Here We Go Again,
Ghost Shirt Litany,
How to Be an Indian Male in the Early 21st Century,
To Rid the Egg,
The Question,
No Eyes,
To Find the Indian Wisdom,
Park Sandwich,
Building Rooms to Sell Dreams,
Part Gravel, Part Water, All Indian,
Life Money,
Lakota Language Lesson with Benjamin,
Meals,
Dead Whistle,
Crazy Horse Nightmares,
She Is Now a Poem,
It Is Called a Chow Line,
Steve Pacheco,
History,
City Elegy for a Nameless Skin,
Uncle,
Indian Country,
Veteran's Day,
Lonesome Night,
Rocks,
Waiting for the Barbarians,
Sugar Bowl,
Our Life,
Arrival Song,
But Tonight I Praise It,
Prairie Prayer,
The Lower Sioux Rez: Three Scenes,
Wacipi,
Homeland,
Her Belly,
Star Quilt,
On the Anniversary of Her Wake,
First of the Month,
Eden Prairie, Minnesota,
Brothers,
Love Poem,
Joel Waters,
Devil's Playground,
The Outhouse,
Picking Potatoes,
The Linoleum Heart,
Wannabe,
Spirits Underneath an Artificial Blue Sky,
Rez Cars Crash,
Into the Turtle's Cracks,
Cherry,
The Cigarette Burns,
Luke Warm Water,
Art of Huffing Paint,
Blip Blip,
Chief Bigfoot Death Pose and the Pawn Shop Receipt,
Indian Health Service Clinic,
Welfare Bliss,
Martin, South Dakota Needed a Martini Waitress,
Ishi's Hiding Place,
John Wayne's Bullet,
Pizza Poem,
The Jesus of Pine Ridge,
Reservation Casino (Fetterman's Revenge),
This Is What It Means to Say San Diego, California,
Rapid City Wino Lament,
On Indian Time,
About the Authors,