DR. JOHN SMELCER'S POETRY BOOKS
NEW! Spring 2012
THE INDIAN PROPHET
From Cross-Cultural Communications Press, celebrating 40 years of publishing!
BEAUTIFUL WORDS
RAVEN SPEAKS
"Raven Speaks has finally made it to America!"
-- Originally published in England in 1997 by England's Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes
THE BINGHAMTON POEMS
Book's Origin: John Smelcer's tenth book of poetry, The Binghamton Poems (102 pages), is a collection of poetry written from the fall of 2006 until fall 2008. The poems were personally selected and edited by Pulitzer Prize winner John Updike, who co-judged the National Poetry Book award with Smelcer in the mid-1990s. American Book Award winner Maria Mazzioti Gillan provided the foreword. "Some say poetry is cathartic. Reading these poems teaches us that poetry is necessary." -- John Updike
Buy Now
ROSEBUD MAGAZINE
Background: In the past 15 years, John has served as poetry editor, associate publisher, publisher, and briefly as publisher/CEO of Rosebud magazine, one of the premiere literary magazines in America. The current issue includes poems by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, a story by W.P. Kinsella (author of Field of Dreams), and a recently-discovered unfinished poem by Jim Morrison of The Doors. The next issue, due out later this summer, includes poems by John Updike and Amiri Baraka, who celebrates his 75th birthday this fall.
HERE FIRST
featuring John Smelcer's Essay -- "In The Past's Familiar Tongue"
From Library Journal: This anthology of 26 essays is a follow-up to I Tell You Now (1978). The authors, born mostly in the 1940s or after, come from many different tribes. Some are full blood, others mixed; some were raised on a reservation, others weren't; and some are well known, others obscure. They are professors, artists, poets, novelists, playwrights, social workers, and more. Arnold Krupat and Brian Swann assert that the essays reflect not only how many different ways there are to be Indian today but also how many different ways there are to write about these experiences. After a misanthropic description of American life, W.S. Penn admits, "The problem is that I don't really hate America. I hate the fact that what I want America to do is like me." Rex Lee Jim declares, "When I realized that everything matters, I immediately knew that my destiny was completely in my control." Vickie Sears calls writing "a wind" and a "moving in dreamdance." Like the previous anthology, this collection is a valuable contribution to Native American studies and literary scholarship.
From Booklist: Growing up Native American is unlike any other experience, although questions of identity and the struggle to find a place in the dominant culture resonate meaningfully to readers from all backgrounds. As Rex Lee Jim, one of the 26 contemporary Native American writers who contributed autobiographical essays to this striking collection, writes, "It's somewhat funny to know that the very personal is also the most common and therefore universal." Like many others, he focuses on the power of language, in his case, a Navajo prayer taught to him by his grandfather. Betty Louise Bell writes that as a child she "trusted words" to save her from the hardships of her poor, semiliterate family. Sherman Alexie's ironic and athletically graceful essay is the most dynamic, but each self-portrait compellingly discloses a unique facet of Native American life and of literature, which preserves memory, makes sense out of suffering, and renders revelations poetic.
Buy Now
Amazon.com
SONGS FROM AN OUTCAST
(UCLA’s American Indian Studies Center, 2000)
Details: Selected and edited and with a foreword by Denise Levertov /Foreword to the bilingual poems by X. J. Kennedy. In the poems, some written in the Ahtna language and then rendered into memorable English, John Smelcer conveys a strong sense of his heritage, what poet Denise Levertov calls "his constant haunting awareness of indigenous life so grievously wounded yet still alive." Smelcer speaks from the Alaskan landscape, for the land, and for the people that belong to it. Smelcer has steeped himself and his poetry in his Ahtna traditions of language and ritual. As a result, his writing, with remarkable strength, succeeds in bridging his Native and English worlds. No library should be without this book.”
Buy Now
Amazon.com
bn.com
WITHOUT RESERVATION
From Library Bookwatch: Winner of the 2004 Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award. Winner of the 2004 Western Writers of America Award for Poetry. Alaskan Native John Smelcer is the only surviving speaker, reader, and writer of his native language, Ahtna.
Without Reservation is a collection of free-verse poetry by Alaskan Native American John E. Smelcer that emphasizes clear tone and vivid images that are simple, honest, and as-is. Smelcer is the only surviving speaker, reader, and writer of his native language of Atna, Without Reservation is a compelling voice, unforgettable and highly recommended.
"Without Reservation is a compelling voice, unforgettable and highly recommended." -- Library Bookwatch
Buy Now
Amazon.com
bn.com
Truman University Press
A CYCLE OF MYTHS
Contains 20 Alaska Native Myths from southeast Alaska. Now in its 10th printing.