National Poetry Month
For something a little different this National Poetry Month, explore One Stick Song, a collection of poems and short prose written by Sherman Alexie, a Native American author and poet who won the World Heavyweight Poetry Bout four times before the competition ended in 2004.
Alexie, a Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Indian, recently won the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for his book, The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. And his first short story collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven was the basis for the popular Miramax movie, Smoke Signals.
In addition to Alexie’s works and those of other Native American authors, the Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections has an outstanding collection on Native American history and culture. The centerpiece of Cornell’s American Indian holdings is the Huntington Free Library Native American Collection, a spectacular gathering of more than 40,000 volumes that documents the history, culture, languages and arts of the native tribes of both North and South America.
Search Cornell University Library’s catalog to find Smoke Signals and Alexie’s other novels and collections of poetry and short stories. To learn more about the Cornell’s American Indian and Culture collection, visit <http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/collections/amerindhist.html>.
Read a Daily Haiku for Your Soul
April 18, 2008, Cornell Chronicle
leaves fleeing branches,
hatred fleeing winter hearts,
peace must be our way
- David Skorton & Robin Davisson
mountaintop:
giving back
each breath
- Tom Clausen
For more than ten years, Tom Clausen, access services librarian, posted a daily haiku in the stacks elevator of the old Mann Library building. Today, he continues to post them on the Mann Library home page and on a dictionary stand near the New Book shelf in Mann Library's newly renovated building. The poems are original works of an extended haiku community that includes Cornell community members and other poets, including a Cornell president and his wife (see above). .
Enjoy them during National Poetry Month at http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/.