At Geronimo's grave

Ruffo, Armand Garnet 1955- (Author).

Summary: From the author of the brilliant poetic biography Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney comes this follow-up collection of powerful, touching poems about aboriginal realities and consciousness. Geronimo is probably the second-best-known Native American name, after Pocahontas. But the reality of the great Apache warrior's ulitmate fate is little remembered. In At Geronimo's Grave, Amand Ruffo uses the Apache warrior's life as a metaphor for the lives of many of the abandoned native people on this continent. Feared for his once-great prowess, the warrior horseman was reduced, as the cover shows, to wearing a top hat and riding in an early Ford Model T car, a grim caricature of assimilation into the dominant culture. The bitter irony of this fate echoes through the personal poems in At Geronimo's Grave as well. With affection and concern, Armand Ruffo uses blunt, direct, language to examine the lives and experiences of people who struggle to make their way in a world that has no place for them. Or who have already given up that struggle. At Geronimo's Grave is a love letter to a people trapped in the slow-moving vehicle of another culture which is taking them nowhere.

Record details

ISBN: 9781550501766
ISBN: 1550501763
Physical Description: 111 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
print
Publisher: Regina, Sask. : Coteau Books ; Niagara Falls, NY : Available in the US from General Distribution Services, 2001.

Content descriptions

General Note:	Poems.
Formatted Contents Note:	At Geronimo's grave -- Power -- Creation story -- At Geronimo's grave -- Bisco graveyard -- Fish tale -- For all their failings -- Fallout -- Contemplating surrender -- Detour -- Far away hills I see -- Birth day poem -- Today the lake (again) -- Birth of the sacred -- Painless -- Peepeegizaence -- Prayer -- She asked me -- Rockin' chair lady -- Drum song -- Now that the galleons have landed -- Promises -- In the Sierra Blanca -- I tried escape -- Raining ice -- Sacred pine -- Baby blues -- I heard them, I was there -- On the line -- Geronimo in battle -- Powwows and Indians -- Portrait of a heathen considered -- Apache son -- New Mexico then -- At the national war museum -- Iron angel -- Drum song -- The dream -- World view -- Address unknown -- Legend -- Her woman's song -- Address unknown -- Meditation -- Bessie's blues -- Picture -- Letter -- Easy -- Three hundred and sixty-five ways -- Tomato heart -- Bear -- Geronimo's watermelons -- Song -- Shut in a room -- It happens -- Earth poem -- Blueberries -- Dance to hold on -- No man's land -- Domination -- Surprise -- The fallen -- For the woman who fell from the sky -- In silence -- Geronimo: The movie -- Logging camp photograph -- Missing -- Dialogue -- What matters you say -- Geronimo the old man -- The art of survival -- Postscript.
Immediate Source of Acquisition Note:	Donation ; 2003/10.