Sherman J. Alexie
Sherman J. Alexie, Jr., was born in October 1966. A Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, he grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in
Born hydrocephalic, which means with water on the brain, Alexie underwent a brain operation at the age of 6 months and was not expected to survive. When he did beat the odds, doctors predicted he would live with severe mental retardation. Though he showed no signs of this, he suffered severe side effects, such as seizures, throughout his childhood. In spite of all he had to overcome, Alexie learned to read by age three, and devoured novels, such as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, by age five. All these things ostracized him from his peers, though, and he was often the brunt of other kids' jokes on the reservation.
As a teenager, after finding his mother's name written in a textbook assigned to him at the Wellpinit school, Alexie made a conscious decision to attend high school off the reservation in Reardan, WA, about 20 miles south of Wellpinit, where he knew he would get a better education. At Rearden High he was the only Indian, except for the school mascot. There he excelled academically and became a star player on the basketball team. This experienced inspired his first young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian
In 1985 Alexie graduated Reardan High and went on to attend
Alexie planned to be a doctor and enrolled in pre-med courses at WSU, but after fainting numerous times in human anatomy class realized he needed to change his career path. That change was fueled when he stumbled into a poetry workshop at WSU.
Encouraged by poetry teacher Alex Kuo, Alexie excelled at writing and realized he'd found his new path. Shortly after graduating WSU with a BA in American Studies, Alexie received the Washington State Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship in 1991 and the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship in 1992.
Not long after receiving his second fellowship, and just one year after he left WSU, his first two poetry collections, The Business of Fancy dancing and I would Steal Horses, were published.
Alexie had a problem with alcohol that began soon after he started college at Gonzaga, but after learning that Hanging Loose Press agreed to publish The Business of Fancydancing, he immediately gave up drinking at the age of 23 and has been sober ever since.
In his twenties he continued to write prolifically. His first collection of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, was published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 1993. For this story collection he received a PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction, and was awarded a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award. In March 2005 Grove Atlantic Press reissued the collection with the addition of two new stories.
Alexie was named one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists and won the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award and the Murray Morgan Prize for his first novel,Reservation Blue, published in 1995 by Atlantic Monthly Press. His second novel, Indian Killer,, published in 1996, also by Atlantic Monthly Press, was named one of People's Best of Pages and a New York Times Notable Book. This book was published in paperback by Warner Books in 1998.
In the past, Alexie has done readings and stand-up comedy performances with musician Jim Boyd, a Colville Indian. Alexie and Boyd collaborated to record the album Reservation Blues, which contains the songs from the book of the same name. One of the Reservation Blues songs, "Small World" {WAV} also appeared on Talking Rain: Spoken Word &Music from the Pacific Northwest an Honor: A Benefit for the Honor the Earth Campaign.
In 1996 Boyd and Alexie opened for the Indigo Girls at a concert to benefit the Honor the Earth Campaign.
In 1997 Alexie embarked on another artistic collaboration, Chris Eyrie , a Cheyenne/Arapaho Indian, discovered Alexie's writing while doing graduate work at
The basis for the screenplay was "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona," a short story from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Shadow Catcher Entertainment produced the film. Released as Smoke Signals at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1998, the movie won two awards: the Audience Award and the Filmmakers Trophy.
After success at Sundance, Smoke Signals found a distributor, Miramax Films and was released in
In 2002 Alexie made his directorial debut withThe Business of Fancydancing . Alexie wrote the screenplay based loosely on his first poetry collection. The film was produced and distributed independently, and won numerous film festival awards.
In 1998, in the midst of releasing Smoke Signals, Alexie competed in and won his first World Heavyweight Poetry Bout competition in June 1998, organized by the World Poetry Bout Association (WPBA) in
Known for his exceptional humor and performance ability, Alexie made his stand-up debut at theFoolproof Northwest Comedy Festival in
In 1998, Alexie participated with seven others in the PBS Lehrer News Hour Dialogue on Race with President Clinton. The discussion was moderated by Jim Lehrer and originally aired on PBS on July 9, 1998. Alexie has also been featured on Politically Incorrect; 60 Minutes II; Now with Bill Moyers, for which he wrote a special segment on insomnia and his writing process called"Up All Night" and most recently on The Colbert Report in October 2008.
In February 2003, Alexie participated in the Museum of Tolerance project , " Finding Our Families, Finding Ourselves," an exhibit showcasing the diversity within the personal histories of several noted Americans, and celebrating the shared experiences common to being part of an American family, encouraging visitors to seek out their own histories, mentors and heroes. This project was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, "Our Big Americal Family" , which originally aired in January 2003, on which Alexie was a guest.
Alexie, who is also a thought-provoking public speaker, was the commencement speaker for the
He was the guest editor for the Winter 2000-01 issue of Ploughshares, a prestigious literary journal, and was a 1999 O.Henry Award Prizejuror, and one of the judges for the 2000 inauguralPEN/Amazon.com Short Story Award.He has been a member of a number of Independent Spirit Awards Nominating Committees, and has served as a creative adviser to the Sundance Institute Writers Fellowship Program and the Film Independent Screenwriters Lab.
His most recent honors include the 2009 Odyssey Award for The Absolutely True Diary audio book, produced by Recorded Books, LLC, a 2008 Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award for middle grades and young adults, a Washington Book Award; a 2008 Stranger Genius Award, the 2008 Boston Globe -Horn Book Awards for Excellence in Children's Literature in Fiction and the 2007 National Book Award, in Young People;s Literature for his adult nover The Absolutely True Diary of a Part tije Indian.
Other awards and honor include th 2007 Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement Award and the Regent's Distinguished Alumnus Award,
Alexie's most recent novels are Flight, released in April 2007 by Grove /
Sherman Alexie lives in
Sherman Alexie is one of our most acclaimed and popular writers today. Now, with Ten Little Indians, he offers eleven poignant and emotionally resonant new stories about Native Americans who, like all Americans, find themselves at personal and cultural crossroads, faced with heartrending, tragic, sometimes wondrous moments of being that test their loyalties, their capacities, and their notions of who they are and who they love.
In "The Life and Times of Estelle Walks Above," an intellectual feminist Spokane Indian woman saves the lives of dozens of white women all around her, to the bewilderment of her only child, now a grown man who looks back at his life with equal parts fondness, amusement, and regret. In "Do You Know Where I Am?" two college sweethearts rescue a lost cat--a simple act that has profound moral consequences for the rest of their lives together. In "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," a homeless Indian man must raise $1,000 in twenty-four hours to buy back the fancy dance outfit stolen from his grandmother fifty years earlier.
Even as they often make us laugh, Sherman Alexie's stories are driven by a haunting lyricism and naked candor that cut to the heart of the human experience, shedding brilliant light on what happens when we grow into and out of each other. Ten Little Indians is a great new work from "a master of language, writing beautifully, unsparingly, and straight to the heart" (The Nation).
Some of his poems
Dangerous Astronomy
I wanted to walk outside and praise the stars,
But David, my baby son, coughed and coughed.
His comfort was more important than the stars
So I comforted and kissed him in his dark
Bedroom, but my comfort was not enough.
His mother was more important than the stars
So he cried for her breast and milk. It's hard
For fathers to compete with mothers' love.
In the dark, mothers illuminate like the stars!
Dull and jealous, I was the smallest part
Of the whole. I know this is stupid stuff
But I felt less important than the farthest star
As my wife fed my son in the hungry dark.
How can a father resent his son and his son's love?
Was my comfort more important than the stars?
A selfish father, I wanted to pull apart
My comfortable wife and son. Forgive me, Rough
God, because I walked outside and praised the stars,
And thought I was more important than the stars.
Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World
The morning air is all awash with angels . . .
- Richard Wilbur
The eyes open to a blue telephone
In the bathroom of this five-star hotel.
I wonder whom I should call? A plumber,
Proctologist, urologist, or priest?
Who is most among us and most deserves
The first call? I choose my father because
He's astounded by bathroom telephones.
I dial home. My mother answers. "Hey, Ma,
I say, "Can I talk to Poppa?" She gasps,
And then I remember that my father
Has been dead for nearly a year. "Shit, Mom,"
I say. "I forgot he’s dead. I’m sorry—
How did I forget?" "It’s okay," she says.
"I made him a cup of instant coffee
This morning and left it on the table—
Like I have for, what, twenty-seven years—
And I didn't realize my mistake
Until this afternoon." My mother laughs
At the angels who wait for us to pause
During the most ordinary of days
And sing our praise to forgetfulness
Before they slap our souls with their cold wings.
Those angels burden and unbalance us.
Those fucking angels ride us piggyback.
Those angels, forever falling, snare us
And haul us, prey and praying, into dust.
Dangerous Astronomy
I wanted to walk outside and praise the stars,
But David, my baby son, coughed and coughed.
His comfort was more important than the stars
So I comforted and kissed him in his dark
Bedroom, but my comfort was not enough.
His mother was more important than the stars
So he cried for her breast and milk. It's hard
For fathers to compete with mothers' love.
In the dark, mothers illuminate like the stars!
Dull and jealous, I was the smallest part
Of the whole. I know this is stupid stuff
But I felt less important than the farthest star
As my wife fed my son in the hungry dark.
How can a father resent his son and his son's love?
Was my comfort more important than the stars?
A selfish father, I wanted to pull apart
My comfortable wife and son. Forgive me, Rough
God, because I walked outside and praised the stars,
And thought I was more important than the stars
Poverty of Mirrors
You wake these mornings alone and nothing
can be forgiven; you drink the last
swallow of warm beer from the can
beside the bed, tell the stranger sleeping
on the floor to go home. It's too easy
to be no one with nothing to do, only
slightly worried about the light bill
more concerned with how dark day gets.
You walk alone on moist pavement wondering
what color rain is in the country.
Does the world out there revolve around rooms
without doors or windows? Centering the mirror
you found in the trash, walls seem closer
and you can never find the right way
out, so you open the fridge again
for a beer, find only rancid milk and drink it
whole. This all tastes too fa
Big Lies, Small Lies
(Sestina)
Having lied to our German hosts about our plans
for the day, Diane and I visited
instead of searching for rare albums in
Only a dozen visitors walked through the camp
because we were months away from tourist season.
The camp was austere. The museum was simple.
Once there, I had expected to feel simple
emotions: hate, anger, sorrow. That was my plan.
I would write poetry about how the season
of winter found a perfect home in cold
I would be a Jewish man who died in the camp.
I would be the ideal metaphor.
would be a short train ride away from hell.
would take the blame. I thought it would all be simple
but there were no easy answers inside the camp.
The poems still took their forms, but my earlier plans
seemed so selfish. What could I say about
when I had never suffered through any season
inside its walls? Could I imagine a season
of ash and snow, of flames and shallow graves?
is only a short train ride away from
If you can speak some German, it is a simple
journey which requires coins and no other plans
for the day. We lied about visiting the camp
to our German hosts, who always spoke of the camp
as truthfully as they spoke about the seasons.
to believe otherwise. As we drove through
our hosts pointed out former Nazi homes, simply
and quickly. "We are truly ashamed of
Mikael said, "but what about all the Dachaus
in the
in your country?" Yes, Mikael, you ask simple
questions which are ignored, season after season.
Mikael, I'm sorry we lied about
and
Inside
faith in the change of seasons
because some of the men who built the camps still live in
in
They live simple lives. They share bread with sons and daughters
who have come to understand the master plan.
History as the Home Movie
it begins and ends with ash, though we insist
on ignoring the shared fires in our past.
We attempt to erase our names from the list
that begins and ends with ash.
We ignore the war until we are the last
standing, until we are the last to persist
in denial, as we are shipped off to camps
where we all are stripped, and our dark bodies lit
by the cruel light of those antique Jew-skinned lamps.
Decades after
that begins and ends with ash.
Commonly Asked Questions
Why are we here? What have we come to see?
What do we need to find behind the doors?
Are we searching for an apology
from the ghosts of unrepentant Nazis?
We pay the entrance fee at the front door.
Why are we here? What have we come to see?
The actors have moved on to the next scene
and set: furnace, shovel, and soot-stained door.
Are we searching for an apology
from all the Germans who refused to see
the ash falling in front of their locked doors?
Why are we here? What have we come to see
that cannot be seen in other countries?
Every country hides behind a white door.
Are we searching for an apology
from the patient men who've hidden the keys?
Listen: a door is a door is a door.
Why are we here? What have we come to see?
Are we searching for an apology?
The
What do we indigenous people want from our country?
We stand over mass graves. Our collective grief makes us numb.
We are waiting for the construction of our museum.
We too could stack the shoes of our dead and fill a city
to its thirteenth floor. What did you expect us to become?
What do we indigenous people want from our country?
We are waiting for the construction of our museum.
We are the great-grandchildren of Sand Creek and
We are the veterans of the Indian wars. We are the sons
and daughters of the walking dead. We have lost everyone.
What do we indigenous people want from our country?
We stand over mass graves. Our collective grief makes us numb.
We are waiting for the construction of our museum.
Songs From Those Who Love the Flames
We start the fires
on the church spire:
ash, ash.
We build tall pyres
from children's choirs:
ash, ash.
We watch flames gyre
and burn the liars:
ash, ash.
We watch flames gyre
from children's choirs:
ash, ash.
We start the fires
and burn the liars:
ash, ash.
We build tall pyres
on the church spire.
ash, ash.
We build tall pyres
and burn the liars:
ash, ash.
We watch flames gyre
on the church spire:
ash, ash.
We start the fires
from children's choirs:
ash, ash.
After We Are Free
If Iwere Jewish, how would I mourn the dead?
I am
If I were Jewish, how would I remember the past?
I am
If I were Jewish, how would I find the joy to dance?
I am
If I were Jewish, how would I find time to sing?
I am
If I were Jewish, how would I fall in love?
I am
If I were Jewish, how would I feel about ash?
I am
If I were Jewish, how would I tell the stories?
I am
If I were Jewish, how would I sleep at night?
I am
If I were Jewish, how would I find my home?
I am
Defending Walt Whitman
Basketball is like this for young Indian boys, all arms and legs
and serious stomach muscles. Every body is brown!
These are the twentieth-century warriors who will never kill,
although a few sat quietly in the deserts of
waiting for orders to do something, to do something.
God, there is nothing as beautiful as a jumpshot
on a reservation summer basketball court
where the ball is moist with sweat,
and makes a sound when it swishes through the net
that causes Walt Whitman to weep because it is so perfect.
There are veterans of foreign wars here
although their bodies are still dominated
by collarbones and knees, although their bodies still respond
in the ways that bodies are supposed to respond when we are young.
Every body is brown! Look there, that boy can run
up and down this court forever. He can leap for a rebound
with his back arched like a salmon, all meat and bone
synchronized, magnetic, as if the court were a river,
as if the rim were a dam, as if the air were a ladder
leading the Indian boy toward home.
Some of the Indian boys still wear their military hair cuts
while a few have let their hair grow back.
It will never be the same as it was before!
One Indian boy has never cut his hair, not once, and he braids it
into wild patterns that do not measure anything.
He is just a boy with too much time on his hands.
Look at him. He wants to play this game in bare feet.
God, the sun is so bright! There is no place like this.
Walt Whitman stretches his calf muscles
on the sidelines. He has the next game.
His huge beard is ridiculous on the reservation.
Some body throws a crazy pass and Walt Whitman catches it
with quick hands. He brings the ball close to his nose
and breathes in all of its smells: leather, brown skin, sweat
black hair, burning oil, twisted ankle, long drink of warm water,
gunpowder, pine tree. Walt Whitman squeezes the ball tightly.
He wants to run. He hardly has the patience to wait for his turn.
"What's the score?" he asks. He asks, "What's the score?"
Basketball is like this for Walt Whitman. He watches these Indian boys
as if they were the last bodies on earth. Every body is brown!
Walt Whitman shakes because he believes in God.
Walt Whitman dreams of the Indian boy who will defend him,
trapping him in the corner, all flailing arms and legs
and legendary stomach muscles. Walt Whitman shakes
because he believes in God. Walt Whitman dreams
of the first jumpshot he will take, the ball arcing clumsily
from his fingers, striking the rim so hard that it sparks.
Walt Whitman shakes because he believes in God.
Walt Whitman closes his eyes. He is a small man and his beard
is ludicrous on the reservation, absolutely insane.
His beard makes the Indian boys righteously laugh. His beard
frightens the smallest Indian boys. His beard tickles the skin
of the Indian boys who dribble past him. His beard, his beard!
God, there is beauty in every body. Walt Whitman stands
at center court while the Indian boys run from basket to basket.
Walt Whitman cannot tell the difference between
offense and defense. He does not care if he touches the ball.
Half of the Indian boys wear t-shirts damp with sweat
and the other half are bareback, skin slick and shiny.
There is no place like this. Walt Whitman smiles.
Walt Whitman shakes. This game belongs to him.
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