Put Sey

by Victor A. Charlo, Roger Dunsmore (Editor), Lowell Jaeger (Editor)

Victor Charlo is a revered elder and spiritual leader of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Born and raised on the Flathead Reservation in western Montana, Vic writes poems about reservation life and people, his family, and his journeys to visit the polar bears. In Good Enough, Vic's daughter April Charlo has translated four of her father's poems into the family's native Salish language.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published October 11, 2008

Reviews

[Chris LaTray]

I found a copy of this book on a shelf at the Missoula Art Museum and I was thrilled because when I did a panel with Vic at the inaugural James Welch Native Lit Festival last summer, by the time I got to the sales table all the copies were gone. Simply put, Vic Charlo = the Poet Laureate of the CSKT. 'Nuff said. This poem is about a feature on the mountain that I drive by every time I am on the rez ... I drove by today in fact. What a joy to read this poem before the engine of my truck has even cooled:

Dancing Boy

He thought he changed the weather.
Maybe he did.
Snow line on Mission Range,
gray cloud morning, yet he owned
blue holes in the sky.
Snowstorm dances, brushes against
dark blue peaks.
Peach sun glows under low dark clouds.

Dancing Boy kicks up fir
needles big as trees,
chest bone white with snow.

[Anna Bacon]

"Directions are simple here.
Geese know where to go
and eagles fly. Yet sometimes
you get lost on wrong roads.

Then

when you come to school,
you seek from this high window
and find living river, red willow,
white aspen, old juniper and pine.

This is you.

And bright, clay cliffs fix the stars."