Baptism of Desire

by Louise Erdrich

A second book of poetry by Louise Erdich, author of the bestselling and award winning novels Love Medicine, The Beet Queen and Tracks.

Baptisim by blood, water, or desire is necessary for salvation in Roman Catholic tradition, and baptism of desire in the term used for the leap of trust by which a sincere believer can experience spiritual regeneration.Louise Erdrich's poems are acts of redemption. Everywhere evident is Erdrich's unique capacity for finding the perfect word, the fresh, yet absolutely right, metaphor that makes her wrk both profound and accessable.

Genres: Poetry, Indigenous, Womens, Native American

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Karen Louise Erdrich is a American author of novels, poetry, and children's books. Her father is German American and mother is half Ojibwe and half French American. She is an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe nation (also known as Chippewa). She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant Native writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.

For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/louise-e...

From a book description:

Author Biography:

Louise Erdrich is one of the most gifted, prolific, and challenging of contemporary Native American novelists. Born in 1954 in Little Falls, Minnesota, she grew up mostly in Wahpeton, North Dakota, where her parents taught at Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. Her fiction reflects aspects of her mixed heritage: German through her father, and French and Ojibwa through her mother. She worked at various jobs, such as hoeing sugar beets, farm work, waitressing, short order cooking, lifeguarding, and construction work, before becoming a writer. She attended the Johns Hopkins creative writing program and received fellowships at the McDowell Colony and the Yaddo Colony. After she was named writer-in-residence at Dartmouth, she married professor Michael Dorris and raised several children, some of them adopted. She and Michael became a picture-book husband-and-wife writing team, though they wrote only one truly collaborative novel, The Crown of Columbus (1991).

The Antelope Wife was published in 1998, not long after her separation from Michael and his subsequent suicide. Some reviewers believed they saw in The Antelope Wife the anguish Erdrich must have felt as her marriage crumbled, but she has stated that she is unconscious of having mirrored any real-life events.

She is the author of four previous bestselling andaward-winning novels, including Love Medicine; The Beet Queen; Tracks; and The Bingo Palace. She also has written two collections of poetry, Jacklight, and Baptism of Desire. Her fiction has been honored by the National Book Critics Circle (1984) and The Los Angeles Times (1985), and has been translated into fourteen languages.

Several of her short stories have been selected for O. Henry awards and for inclusion in the annual Best American Short Story anthologies. The Blue Jay's Dance, a memoir of motherhood, was her first nonfiction work, and her children's book, Grandmother's Pigeon, has been published by Hyperion Press. She lives in Minnesota with her children, who help her run a small independent bookstore called The Birchbark.

Reviews

[Shivanee Ramlochan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louise Erdrich published these poems when I was three or four; reading them is not unlike a cradling: to be held by a blood-mouthed matriarch who would bless you and defend you. That is what these poems do. They hold you up to the dangerous light.

[Aitana Monzón · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I want no shelter, I deny
the whole configuration.
I hate the weight of earth.
I hate the sound of water.
Ash to ash, you say, but I know different.
I will not stop burning."

[Carl Waluconis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louise Erdrich is such an important voice in American Literature, mostly based on her novels. This book of poems, relatively early in her career, is her fifth book. Reading it now still brings feelings of the disturbing strangeness and spiritual feelings of everyday life. I will admit that the short story, "Potchikoo's Life After Death", was especially mesmerizing with its narrative structure more like one growing from indigenous roots than European narratives. In her poetry as well, Erdrich challenges the everyday world of Christianity:
"Snake of hard hours, you are my poetry.
According to God, your place is low,
under Adam's heel, but as for me,
a woman shaped from a secondary bone,
who cares if you wrap my shoulders?
Who cares if you whisper? Who cares
if the fruit is luscious? Your place
is at my ear."
She obviously speaks directly, making this book of poems almost 30 years old worth picking up.

[Nelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.7 Stars

[jojo Lazar]

free from somerville library (along with 15 other books i took home from their purging of old editions!) and oh so good and out of print and i'msolucky yay. i love this woman. i consider her the only other magical realist faulkneresque writer in the US besides toni morrison...

[August Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

These poems began to make some more sense to me when I learned Erdrich wrote most of them in the dead of restless nights while pregnant. They have an element of bubbling up from something deep within. They also are notably elliptical, with some hard-nosed Christian imagery coming through the clearest. Erdrich seems to have a tempestuous Old Testament God of fire and brimstone on her mind. "According to God, your place is low, under Adam's heel, but as for me, a woman shaped from secondary bone, who cares if you wrap my shoulders?" [p 47].

Though, as a fan of Louise Erdrich, I have to say that this collection disappointed me. It came out on the heels of Erdrich's successful 1988 novel Tracks and I, unfortunately, did feel a certain haphazardness coming through, perhaps a marketing push to keep Erdrich on the shelves. The language felt unsure of itself at times and the standout work — Potchikoo's Life After Death — isn't even a poem at all. It's a meditative and inventive short story in prose about a man's spirit navigating his afterlife. Erdrich is known for her powerful lyrical writing; she employs the same style here but it somehow seems to work to her detriment. A reviewer for the Western Literature Association observed that she "uses the same devices in her verse that work so well in her prose" but that her poems "somehow lack power."

[Mark Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

About midway through Erdrich's volume, a footnote declares that these poems were written between 2 and 4 a.m. when she was suffering from insomnia during pregnancy. That information served as a key to unlock so much more of my understanding and appreciation for them. It is as if the words have a power of gestation all their own, or as if something gets born here.

Also, near the middle of the book, she writes a fable called Potchikoo's Life After Death and serves as a haunting reminder of racism embedded in religion.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of Erdrich’s poetry is taut and fraught (in the best kind of way) with the themes of religion, communion, and togetherness vs loneliness; she tears open catholic scenery to forge a new mythology, weaving together her personal life, indigenous imagery, and rites of the church. Her poem on Mary Magdalene is especially powerful and worth a dog ear.

[Caitlin Conlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I wish I’d read “Jacklight” prior to reading this collection, because I think it would’ve given me a deeper appreciation for the stories that were continued in this book. Regardless, I did enjoy these poems though not all of them fully captivated me. I will definitely read more of Erdrich’s poetry in the future!

[Julia McNamee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would read any novel Louise Erdrich wrote, along with her non-fiction, and now I add poetry to the list. This collection pairs beautifully with The Blue Jay's Dance, a book about motherhood that I have cherished for 30 years. Profoundly moving.

[Evan Harms · Rating 4 out of 5]

First poetry I’ve read in a while, and mostly enjoyed. Lots about religion, and some good pieces reflecting the ordinariness and humanity of biblical stories from other perspectives. Lots about birth too!

[Sara (onourshelves) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good collection of poetry, consistent and evocative. I especially enjoyed Hydra and Potchikoo's Life After Death.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

On religion and motherhood and the desolation of life in the middle of the country.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short collection of poems. Lots of Christian imagery. My favorite was part 4, which is actually a short story, not really a poem.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book of poetry. Lots of emotion and depth to the poems.

[Matt Maielli · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Here we are in the sacred monotony.”

would watch a film adaptation of “Potchikoo’s Life After Death.”

[Care · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up

content warning:
Moderate: Pregnancy

[Octavio Solis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Timeless verse from the regal Louise Erdrich. I'll say more later. Powerful words from

[Richelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful but slim collection of poems from an author more known for her lush prose, Erdrich’s Baptism of Desire features consistent verse and ethereal imagery found in the moments of a woman’s life. I appreciated her retelling of Catholic tenets and beliefs through an indigenous and feminist lens. “The Visit” was my favorite poem in this volume.

[Celeste Trimble · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of Erdrich's books of poetry, this one is my favorite. One poem, which begins "I am sorry I ruined the oatmeal," is a potent litany of apologies from what sounds like a woman being criticized for every little thing she does. I enjoy her humility and understand her crippling love. At times this collection brings to mind Sharon Olds and her poetry of family and love and sex and real real life.
Another poem reminds me of my favorite, Edna St. Vincent Millay, when it begins, "It was not love. No flowers or ripened figs/ were in his hands, no words/ in his mouth..." A strange mixture between "love is not all, it is not meat, nor drink, nor slumber, nor a roof against the rain..." and "the wind, driving south, flattened your words against your speaking mouth."
These connections are purely my own, bringing my favorite ladies of the page together for a mental menage a trios.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting collection of poetry. Louise Erdrich is an Ojibwe author whose novels and poetry explore the intersection of her father's catholic faith and her native heritage. I don't endorse her religious vision, but the poems are entertaining. There is also a prose story (myth?) about his death, afterlife and reincarnation of Potchikoo. I especially liked Potchickoo's discovery that white-people-hell is to be chained by the neck to the Sears Roebuck Catalog. The story is wickedly funny.

My favorite poems in this volume are the most overtly religious. Part one of this volume has poems that evoke Erdrich's Catholic heritage. I especially liked Saint Clare and the seven part poem The Sacraments exploring the seven sacraments of the Catholic church, of course redefined.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erdrich; therefore: powerful, heartful, soulful, rain in the forest.

[Tyler Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you may know, her prose is poetic...and her poetry is gorgeous!

[Sunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving and spiritual poems.