Description

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Adrian C. Louis's largely autobiographical verse is characterized by a bluntness born of self-irony and self-criticism. He attacks his subjects with an emotional engagement that is both tender and honest. Within the context of fallen ideals and lost spirituality among Native Americans, he composes elegies for his mentally disabled wife and describes scenes from "Cowturdville", his name for the town near a reservation where he lived. Mesmerizing the reader with the rhythm of his lively lines, Louis demonstrates a stylistic strength that is both accessible and demanding. His candid portrayals of Native American life and his social and moral critique of American consumerism and conformity are darkly hilarious odes to the cultural boundaries between Americans and Native Americans.

About the Author

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ADRIAN C. LOUIS (1946–2018) was born and raised in Nevada and was an enrolled member of the Lovelock Paiute Tribe. Louis has written eight books of poems, including Fire Water World, winner of the 1989 Poetry Center Book Award from San Francisco State University, and he is the author of two works of fiction: Skins, a novel that turned motion, and a collection of short stories, Wild Indians & Other Creatures. Louis has won various writing awards, among them a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the Bush Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. In 1999, he was elected to the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. He taught and Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota and at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota. 

Praise For…

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"Adrian Louis's poetry is the half-bred howl and fully electric song of Indian country. I memorize and recite his poems in the same way that white college professors memorize and recite Yeats and Keats. Read these poems and listen carefully, sweetheart, because there's a Paiute boy slouching toward Bethlehem." --Sherman Alexie, author of Indian Killer


"Mr. Louis is one of the few poets working in the United States of whom I would be brave enough to say is endowed with what Lorca called Duende. That rare, single, solitary, and powerful entity that makes of his poems masterpieces because they cut straight to the heart."
--Virgil Suárez, author of Palm Crows


"Bone Juice extends the already considerable accomplishments of a poet I have admired for years--for his unforced ironic humor in the face of historical tragedy, for his unshakable courage, and for his wisdom. His vision and his voice are unique." --Sam Hamill, author of Gratitude