From Powells.com
A selection of pivotal works by Indigenous authors.
Synopses & Reviews
Review
“In these poems the intimacy is spicy, the lyricism adventurous and the spirit a vigorous dancer. Trevino Brings Plenty, robust as a jazz musician improvising around the traditional American melody line, provides beautiful renditions of a personae’s body and soul testifying about some of the other themes of the America we have become. He is a writer to follow as the years go by.” Primus St. John
Review
“Trevino, with his raw whiskey-soaked voice, is a barroom bard of great evocation. Unhappily the bar life causes dead Indians. Stay alive, man! I’m hoping in your maturity you’ll become the Crazy Horse poet me and the elders are waiting for. Spirit-filled words is what the planet needs.” Walt Curtis
Review
"Trevino Brings Plenty's tales focus on Native survival in the face of modern American displacement. He is a young Indian Odysseus, head up, going forward strongly, only occasionally getting distracted by urban sirens singing their songs of destruction. A dynamic, new Indian voice." Adrian C. Louis
Synopsis
"What one finds in these poems is the truth. It's as simple as that. No frills from the workshop, no ostentatious diction or imagery, but only the firm, quiet enterprise of authenticity. In a world increasingly crude, cruel, and repulsive what could be more pleasing, more useful? Not that these poems shun our actual history. Violence and dislocation are the clearly stated context here. But the accurate vision of a committed imagination prevails, and does so in language as flawless as language can be. I recommend these poems for their wisdom and insight, but even more for their steadfast initiative and independence, their refusal to be fashionable." --Judge's Statement by Hayden Carruth for Blinding the Goldfinches, 2003 Backwaters Prizewinner.
About the Author
Trevino L. Brings Plenty was born on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, Eagle Butte, South Dakota, April 4, 1976. A Minneconjou Lakota Indian, he lived on the reservation until age three, then with family moved to the San Francisco Bay area. At age 16, he moved to Portland, Oregon, where he now resides. He is 55/64 Lakota, the 9/64 is unknown (probably fur trapper).