Posted by
LT
Rest Here (new book reviews)
March 21, 2019
Combine
Frank Waln’s truth, Lyla June’s spirit, Supaman’s energy and you might
get close to Lara’s fiercely beautiful voice. She has been forced
through the sieve of many names, but she presses on, sings for herself
and for many. It is code, she says, in this book’s first pages. She lets
the reader decode the mystery.
When (Trace) Lara (Hentz) lifts John Trudell’s voice she lifts her own. “We’re not taught about our personal relationship to power. We’re not taught about our relationship to the Great Spirit. Recognizing power is what you have to do. When you recognize it, you exercise it. You can’t take back what they have already taken but you can stop the taking of your power, once you recognize it.” She lifts her own voice as she investigates the absence of Indian history, the erasure of Indian lives, the loss of Indian identity in many ways including adoption.
Lara lifts mostly directly through her poetry in “Masks” and “I Shook” and “When a trickle… becomes a river.. then a flood” and “I Wasn’t Ready For Her To Die” and most powerfully in “Ghost Shell.” It’s hard to leave the impact of her words behind.
She writes, “a good poet would never let a good catastrophe go to waste.” She shares the Hopi prophecy, “Now is the time, we are the ones we have been waiting for.” In all her powerful, hip-hop-like words, her closing statements resonate. In them Lara writes,
“All our suffering is mutual.
All our healing is mutual.
All our thriving is mutual.”
⟿Thank you Laura Grace, brilliant poet author of BLACKBIRD... here
Three of my new poems were posted HERE in Cloud Women's Quarterly!
++
BOOK REVIEW
Mental Midgets contains a moving tribute to Native American musician, poet, philosopher and activities John Trudell, who died in 2015.
General themes covered in both books are colonization, the survival and resistance of indigenous people and the attitude of hopeful resistance all of us need to survive the barbarity and insanity of advanced industrial capitalism.
There are also thought-provoking quotations from fellow dissidents Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Lev Tolstoy, Chris Hedges, Kurt Vonnegot and Neil Young.
It’s the type of book I envision re-reading repeatedly over coming months and years.
NEW Ratings on ebook KOBO:
When (Trace) Lara (Hentz) lifts John Trudell’s voice she lifts her own. “We’re not taught about our personal relationship to power. We’re not taught about our relationship to the Great Spirit. Recognizing power is what you have to do. When you recognize it, you exercise it. You can’t take back what they have already taken but you can stop the taking of your power, once you recognize it.” She lifts her own voice as she investigates the absence of Indian history, the erasure of Indian lives, the loss of Indian identity in many ways including adoption.
Lara lifts mostly directly through her poetry in “Masks” and “I Shook” and “When a trickle… becomes a river.. then a flood” and “I Wasn’t Ready For Her To Die” and most powerfully in “Ghost Shell.” It’s hard to leave the impact of her words behind.
She writes, “a good poet would never let a good catastrophe go to waste.” She shares the Hopi prophecy, “Now is the time, we are the ones we have been waiting for.” In all her powerful, hip-hop-like words, her closing statements resonate. In them Lara writes,
“All our suffering is mutual.
All our healing is mutual.
All our thriving is mutual.”
⟿Thank you Laura Grace, brilliant poet author of BLACKBIRD... here
Three of my new poems were posted HERE in Cloud Women's Quarterly!
++
BOOK REVIEW
Mental Midgets/Musqonocihte
By Trace Hentz
Blue Hand Books (2018)
Book Review
This exquisite little book is actually two books in one – both
thoughtful compilations of original poems, prose snapshots, memes,
photos and “creative nonfiction,” all beautifully laid out on the page.Mental Midgets contains a moving tribute to Native American musician, poet, philosopher and activities John Trudell, who died in 2015.
General themes covered in both books are colonization, the survival and resistance of indigenous people and the attitude of hopeful resistance all of us need to survive the barbarity and insanity of advanced industrial capitalism.
There are also thought-provoking quotations from fellow dissidents Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Lev Tolstoy, Chris Hedges, Kurt Vonnegot and Neil Young.
It’s the type of book I envision re-reading repeatedly over coming months and years.
NEW Ratings on ebook KOBO:
- #423 in Nonfiction, History, Americas, Native American
- #3910 in Biography & Memoir, Historical
- Get link
- X
- Other Apps
Adoptee, Author, Mosaic Artist, Blogger, wildly curious
Comments
got the bravery to go ahead and give you a shout out from Dallas Texas!
Just wanted to say keep up the fantastic work!
that actually knows what they're discussing on the internet.
You certainly know how to bring a problem to light and make it important.
More people ought to check this out and understand this side of
the story. It's surprising you're not more popular since you surely have the gift.
to my bookmarks (:.