Fishing for Myth (MVP) - Softcover

Erdrich, Heid E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0898231744 ISBN 13: 9780898231748

Publisher: New Rivers Press, 1997

Synopsis

Poetry. Native American Studies. "In this delightful collection, Heid E. Erdrich reveals the mythic encounter beneath our daily lives. We see in a new light the boyfriend, the childhood game, the losses we endured, the dog we longed for, all given us again with rich and moving language. This collection comes into the heart like the first snow of winter and the blazing green of spring buds. It makes you take stock of your life and feel glad for it all."—Roberta Hill, author of Star Quilt

About this title

About the Author

Author of the 2012 collection Cell Traffic: New and Selected Poems and Winner of the 2009 Minnesota Book Award for her poetry collection National Monuments, Heid E. Erdrich also co-edited Sister Nations: Native American Women on Community. Her first play, Curiosities, was produced by Pangea World Theater in 2010. She is Ojibwe, enrolled at Turtle Mountain. Heid grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota and attended Dartmouth College and Johns Hopkins University. Heid has worked in education and in community for twenty years teaching writing, lecturing on Native American literature, on language recovery, and on visual art. She is a frequent visiting author and project scholar for colleges, universities, libraries and art and cultural centers. She has curated over a dozen visual art exhibits in recent years. Currently, Heid directs Wiigwaas Press, an Ojibwe language publisher, and she is at work on a cookbook from the indigenous foods movement.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Pond

Baltimore's flowers go off like fireworks.
Azaleas buss in colors too hot for our eyes.
You take me to a pond with a cooling fountain,
a bronze child leaping across lilypads. I'm amazed
when you stamp your feet and the Koi rise to be fed.
We have come to release an overgrown fantail goldfish.
She slips from the plastic bag, glimmers above dull coins,
disappears into waters as filled with wishes as marriage.
I press a penny to my lips, toss it in the depths.

Catch and release, catch and release-we have loved
this way for years. That day at the pond repeats,
it seems. The splashing child never
ages, our reflections always waver. And you
keep stamping at the edge of the pond until hundreds of fish churn at its surface,
bubbling up with wishes at their lips,
all the best, all for you.

Edition details

• Publisher: New Rivers Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0898231744
• ISBN 13: 9780898231748
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 70