Electric Snakes - Softcover

Louis, Adrian C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1935218913 ISBN 13: 9781935218913

Publisher: THE BACKWATERS PRESS, 2018

Synopsis

"In ELECTRIC SNAKES, Adrian C. Louis's thirteenth poetry collection, no one is spared his critical eye, including himself. These powerful and often humorous poems cover myriad subjects: Trump, music, zombies, Jimmy John's, childhood, caller ID, venetian blinds, magpies, love, and Mom."—From the Editor

About this title

About the Author:

Adrian C. Louis was born and raised in northern Nevada and is an enrolled member of the Lovelock Paiute Tribe. From 1984-97, Louis taught at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota. He recently retired as Professor of English at Minnesota State University in Marshall. He is the author of thirteen books of poems and two works of fiction. Louis has won various awards, including two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the Bush Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation.

Review:

In candid, profane, and surprisingly hilarious poems, Electric Snakes explores the ways in which we are daily, and violently, confronted with the limitations of our nation’s moral politics, and the failures of our mortal bodies. In these poems, America’s genocidal past continues to haunt its present, wreaking havoc on native communities while also giving the lie to our politicians’ promises that America can return to—or at least cash in on--its fantasy of economic and technological progress for all.  Adrian C. Louis is fearless and unrepentant. He’s a poet who takes no prisoners and suffers no fools.

    —Paisley Rekdal, author of Imaginary Vessels and Animal Eye

For over four decades, Adrian C. Louis has been rocking our world with stunning poetry; his new collection, Electric Snakes, continues to deliver. From the opening--“When I Was A Zombie”--to the ultimate, titular poem, this collection both rollicks and smolders. A clap-on-clap off lamp bought at “Wally World,” Eddie Miles (better than Stephen Curry) burying basketballs from anywhere on the court, all the way to “the machine I will ride back into the whirling chasm of birth,” Louis’s poems teem and hustle with life. They are as hilarious and wickedly forlorn as they are pissed off and poignantly subversive in their deft observations—while always, always being deeply dialed in to the absurd splendor of it all.  I love these poems and their song to our “country ‘tis of thee / sweet land of gizzardry.” 

     —Alex Lemon, author of Feverland: A Memoir in Shards and The Wish Book

About this edition

• Publisher: THE BACKWATERS PRESS
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1935218913
• ISBN 13: 9781935218913
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 100