MN Poet Highlight: Louise Erdrich
I spent a star age in flames
Bolted to the black heavens
Waiting for you.
​
Light crept over the sill of the earth
A thousand upon ten thousand
Upon a hundred thousand years
But no light touched me
Deep in depthless time
Waiting for you.
​
Fate flung me out,
Hauled me here
To love as a stone loves
Waiting for you.
​
Touch me, butterfly.
Like you, I have no hands.
Kiss me, rain.
​
Like you, I have no mouth.
Snow sit heavily upon me.
Like you , I can only wait.
​
Come to me, dear
Unenduring little
Human animal.
​
I have no voice
But your voice.
Sing to me. Speak.
Let the clouds fly over us.
I have spent a star age in flames
Just to hold you.
​
Louise Erdrich "Stone Love"
​
For the past several decades, Louise Erdrich has been one of Minnesota’s most recognizable and exceptional literary figures. A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, she is widely considered one of the most important voices in contemporary Native American literature. A prolific advocate of Native communities and their presence in the heritage of our state, her novels and poetry are centered in Obijiwe culture, blending a historical awareness with her personal memory and experience in Minnesota and the northern Midwest.
​
Born in Little Falls, Minnesota, in 1954, she was raised in Wahpehton, North Dakota, where both her parents were teachers at the Bureau of Indian Affairs school. After earning degrees from Dartmouth College and Johns Hopkins University, she gained national recognition with Love Medicine (1984), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and introduced the fictional world that is the setting for many of her later novels. Her body of work includes the poetry collections Jacklight and Baptism of Desire, as well as acclaimed novels such as The Round House (National Book Award), and The Night Watchman (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction).
​
Erdrich lives in Minneapolis, where she owns and operates Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore dedicated to Native American literature, arts, and education.
https://birchbarkbooks.com/blogs/birchbark
