Poet and Novelist Gordon Henry
February 19, 1999
Audio:
- Interview
- Program Introduction by Mike Steinberg
- Selected Readings:
- How did the title of The Light People come about? (Interview)
- "Playing with words…is that because you are a poet?" (Interview)
- "Could you comment on storytelling in the Native American Community?" (Interview)
- "Different voices in each chapter…" (Interview)
- "Describe the episode where the bird is trained to recite the Constitution" (Interview)
- New work called The Golden Arrow" (Interview)
- Suggested Native American Writers (Interview)
- Acknowledgements, Dedication, and "Sleeping in Rain" (Reading)
- The Light People (2 excerpts) (Reading)
- "I will not tell you…" (Reading)
- From: Art not history not art :Dreamcatchers (Reading)
- From: Art not history not art: Sperm Bank
Questions/Discussion (Reading)
Poet and novelist Gordon Henry is an enrolled member of the White Earth Chippewa Tribe of Minnesota and an associate professor of English at Michigan State University. He has a master's degree from Michigan State University and a PhD from the University of North Dakota. His poetry and fiction have been included in numerous anthologies of American Indian literature, and his first novel, The Light People, was nominated for a National Book Award in 1994 and won an American Book Award in 1995.
"For me storytelling is important because it has the capacity to change, or turn, the consciousness of both the storyteller and the listener." --Gordon Henry, in a North Dakota Quarterly interview.