Writing about Red Lake (II)
I came across Mark Turcotte's Exploding Chippewas in an airport bookstore, and that was my good fortune. I found poem after poem about identity, about Indian identity. I was writing a friend this evening about the writing that was found on the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party bboard. She had compared that literaryJeff Weise to the younger protagonist in Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye", and a phrase from Turcotte's poem "Elsewhere in America" jumped rom my fingers and into the editor's cut buffer --
Big Tooth, the bottle prophet, once said to me
very seriously, you are lucky to be both Indian and white
That is, if it don't make you crazy ...
What occured at Red Lake High School was killing. What triggered the killing is not yet known. But it is not correctly characterized by a few code words to a war that took place 60 years ago, or as white skinheaded nihilism translated cunningly into redskin.
Mark Turcotte doesn't have the answer, but I recommend reading Exploding Chippewas, for the humor, for the non-humor, and for the moment. Airplanes are optional. Back when I used to be Indian ...
Comments
You might want to take a look at Kent Nerburn's Blog.
Kent taught at Red Lake & has a perspective that should be read.
Posted by: moos | March 25, 2005 12:52 AM
The AP story in today's newspapers about Jeff Weise being on Prosac gives an indication as to his behavioral problems and motivations.
Weise apparently was a manic depressive - bipolar - with an obsessive personality or whatever. I have a very close friend who is bi-polar and also suffers from post traumatic stress.
He is a super guy when on his medication - off the drugs, he wants to sue everyone in sight and does for imagined grievances.
Thank God he is too old for Marilyn Manson and the Gothic generation.
Posted by: Bobbie O'Neill | March 26, 2005 02:32 PM