My eighth post, Raúl R. Salinas, ‘Indio Trails: A Xicano Odyssey Through Indian Country’ (Wings Press, 2006), is (has been) up at the Poetry Foundation blog. Here’s an excerpt:
There’s little need for flourished words when cleansing souls on the rez/Pine Ridge Reservation, after leaving the dark lonely city/Rapid City. What I most appreciate about Indio Trails is that even with the constant movement from place to place, when there is no time to indulge in discussions of whether or not the poetry is political, when he and his comrades are in constant action mode, there is always time for prayer, and in prayersong, reflection, and so much common sense:
Walk and you will know.
Walk and Be.
Walk in harmony.
Walk in/to spirit worlds.
Knowledge has no end.
In the poem, “About Invasion and Conquest,” commemorating the 500 Years of Resistance, he tells us, there have been poets, and there will always be poets, to witness and to pass down the people’s history. He really believed this, and he really did this: “Talk for healing. / Knowledge is living.”