Exploding Chippewas [Hardcover]

The stunning classic from the 6th Illinois Poet Laureate

Everything this poet touches is volatile—the poet himself, the people and world around him, ideas and mythologies, the ghosts of memory and the dream of possible futures, all seem to burst into fragments. Mark Turcotte uses poetry to gather up the pieces—the shards of joy and grief, peace and doubt, strength and temptation, questions and answers—as he tries to define and rediscover what is lost when everyday life becomes explosive.MARK TURCOTTE (Turtle Mountain Band Anishinaabe) is the 6th Illinois Poet Laureate. He spent his earliest years on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and in the migrant camps of the western United States. Later, he grew up in and around Lansing, Michigan.

Arriving in Chicago in the spring of 1993 Turcotte rediscovered his love of words and writing and quickly established himself as a unique voice in the city’s thriving poetry scene. That summer he was winner of the First Gwendolyn Brooks Open-mic Poetry Award.

Turcotte is author ofThe Feathered Heart, Songs of Our Ancestors, Road Noise, Le Chant de la Route, andExploding Chippewas(Northwestern University Press). His work has appeared in many national and international literary journals and is included in the new and first everNorton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. Turcotte was the recipient of a 2001-2002 Lannan FoundatlÓ