Late summer night on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Ten Indians are playing basketball on a court barely illuminated by the streetlight above them. They will play until the brown, leather ball is invisible in the dark. They will play until an errant pass jams a finger, knocks a pair of glasses off the face, smashes a nose and draws blood. They will play until the ball bounces off the court and disappears into the shadows.
This may be all you need to know about Native American literature.
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Thesis: I have never met a Native American. Thesis repeated: I have met thousands of Indians.
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Poetry = Anger x Imagination.
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Years later I am giving a reading at a bookstore in Spokane, Washington. There is a large crowd. I read a story about an Indian father who leaves his family for good. He moves to a city a thousand miles away. Then he dies. It is a sad story. When I finish, a woman in the front row breaks into tears.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her.
“I’m so sorry about your father,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say, “But that’s my father sitting right next to you.”