The voices of fifty-seven young American Indians emerge in a powerful collection of original writing coedited by the anthologist of YOU HEAR ME? and THINGS I HAVE TO TELL YOU. When the night isgone and the day isstill coming,we will be taken awayfrom this earth.We will be rising asthe next generationis coming.- from "Next Generations" by Marcia Blacksmith, age thirteen, Crow, LakotaOpen this revelatory anthology of poetry, prose, and memoir and listen to the voices of today’s young American Indians, ages eleven to twenty-two, from many nations across the A young man pines for his "fry bread queen" in a comically honest take on unrequited love. Another teen tells of a "carbonation dance," his summer ritual of crushing returnable Coke cans with his grandfather. Some express typical teenage angst. Others share glimpses of their culture’s unique traditions and beliefs. And many speak of culture clash - such as the homesick "rez girl" riding the New York subway like a "Cochiti carrot in the huge ethnic salad." The chorus assembled between the covers of this essential book sings a song that transcends all borders, seen and unseen.
Author
Simon J. Ortiz is a Puebloan writer of the Acoma Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what has been called the Native American Renaissance. He is one of the most respected and widely read Native American poets. After a three-year stint in the U.S. military, Ortiz enrolled at the University of New Mexico. There, he discovered few ethnic voices within the American literature canon and began to pursue writing as a way to express the generally unheard Native American voice that was only beginning to emerge in the midst of political activism. Two years later, in 1968, he received a fellowship for writing at the University of Iowa in the International Writers Program. In 1988, he was appointed as tribal interpreter for Acoma Pueblo, and in 1989 he became First Lieutenant Governor for the pueblo. In 1982, he became a consulting editor of the Pueblo of Acoma Press. Since 1968, Ortiz has taught creative writing and Native American literature at various institutions, including San Diego State, the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, Navajo Community College, the College of Marin, the University of New Mexico, Sinte Gleska University, and the University of Toronto. Ortiz is a recipient of the New Mexico Humanities Council Humanitarian Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Discovery Award, the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writer's Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and was an Honored Poet recognized at the 1981 White House Salute to Poetry. In 1981, From Sand Creek: Rising In This Heart Which Is Our America, received the Pushcart Prize in poetry. Ortiz received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Returning the Gift Festival of Native Writers (the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers) and the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas (1993)
