First Indian on the Moon

by Sherman Alexie

Poetry. Native American Studies. FIRST INDIAN ON THE MOON opens with the section "Influences": "where I have been/ most of my lives/ is where I'm going/--Lucille Clifton." The stories and poems of Sherman Alexie, an enrolled Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian from Wellpint, Washington, have appeared widely, in such publications as Caliban, Esquire, The World, Beloit Poetry Journal, Red Dirt, Zyzzyva and Story. Alexie has won a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship, and lives in Spokane. "These elegiac poems and stories will break your heart. Watch this guy. He's making myth"--Joy Harjo.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Native American, Short Stories, Literature, Adult, Indigenous

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Sherman Alexie is a Native American author, poet, and filmmaker known for his powerful portrayals of contemporary Indigenous life, often infused with wit, humor, and emotional depth. Drawing heavily on his experiences growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation, Alexie's work addresses complex themes such as identity, poverty, addiction, and the legacy of colonialism, all filtered through a distinctly Native perspective.
His breakout book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, is a semi-autobiographical young adult novel that won the 2007 National Book Award and remains widely acclaimed for its candid and humorous depiction of adolescence and cultural dislocation. Earlier, Alexie gained critical attention with The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, a collection of interconnected short stories that was adapted into the Sundance-winning film Smoke Signals (1998), for which he wrote the screenplay. He also authored the novels Reservation Blues, Indian Killer, and Flight, as well as numerous poetry collections including The Business of Fancydancing and Face.
Born with hydrocephalus, Alexie faced health and social challenges from an early age but demonstrated early academic talent and a deep love for reading. He left the reservation for high school and later studied at Washington State University, where a poetry course shifted his path toward literature. His mentor, poet Alex Kuo, introduced him to Native American writers, profoundly shaping his voice.
In 2018, Alexie faced multiple allegations of sexual harassment, which led to widespread fallout, including rescinded honors and changes in how his work is promoted in educational and literary institutions. He acknowledged causing harm but denied specific accusations. Despite the controversy, his influence on contemporary Native American literature remains significant.
Throughout his career, Alexie has received many awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award for War Dances and an American Book Award for Reservation Blues. He has also been a prominent advocate for Native youth and a founding member of Longhouse Media, promoting Indigenous storytelling through film.
Whether through poetry, prose, or film, Alexie’s work continues to challenge stereotypes and elevate Native American voices in American culture.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

An early work by Native American Sherman Alexie, FIRST INDIAN is a collection
of free verse / prose poems that are full of both life and sadness as he
reflects on the reservation life he tried to leave behind.

“….the Indian girls I loved, Dawn, Loretta, Michelle, Jana, Go-Go, Lulu, all of you Spokane Indian princesses who never asked me to slow dance…….
and I love you still
when I see any of you
all these years later
often broken
and defeated by this reservation
by alcohol
and your own failed dreams.
I love you still
when I see you in the bars, your faces scarred and scared.
Sometimes I think I love you because your failures validate mine
and because my successes move me beyond the same boundaries
that stop you. I can be as selfish as any white or Indian man.
Sometimes, I think I love you because you all still slow dance with
the next Indian man who might save you. I can hear your bar
voice crack into questions : What tribe are you? Are you married?
How long have you been sober/ drunk? …..”

quoted from “ Song”


A good read, albeit a sad one.

Sherman Alexie won a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. FIRST INDIAN was originally published in 1993.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes
I wonder
if Sherman
Alexie
is just
messing
with me

the way/he creates unique forms/on the page/the lines centered/or justified/or separated/with slashes./But then/he creates/beauty/out of fry bread/and Pepsi/and basketball/and alcohol/and I turn/the page/one more/time.

1.
I like the following pieces because of their form:
--Year of the Indian, Fire Storm, Family Cookbook

2.
I like the following pieces because of their final lines:
--Tiny Treaties ("because I don't want to know the truth")
--Split Decisions ("he stood up")

3.
I like the following pieces just because:
--Freaks, I Would Steal Horses, All I Wanted to Do Was Dance

[Melissa Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1993, "First Indian on the Moon," by Sherman Alexie, is a collection of prose poems/short stories and poetry about childhood, poverty, alcoholism, interracial dating, love, sobriety, racism, and Native American identity.

I enjoyed Alexie's short story collection, "Ten Little Indians" (2004), and his memoir, "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" (2017), a lot more than this work.

I also fully admit that it is harder for me to read Alexie's work now, in light of the sexual misconduct that surfaced in 2018 amidst the #MeToo movement --

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/05/589909...

It breaks my heart that Alexie has harmed women writers, abusing his literary power to coerce women to sleep with him or give him sexual favors.

I will still read Alexie's work. But his words about romantic love simply fall flat for me now.

It's awful that so many men are taught to sexually abuse women in our patriarchal culture. Alexie has made bad choices, but were I in his place, who's to say I wouldn't be just as abusive. I would hope that I wouldn't be an abusive man who uses my power to take advantage of women. But I am not a man, and I'll never know.

I do think we're all more than our mistakes, even our worst mistakes. I hope Alexie uses his voice to reckon with the abuse of power he's displayed against women. I think he could share some much needed, soulful insight on why he made the choices he did, and the impact the revelations of sexual misconduct have had on his life.

[Ginny Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the books that brought the manna to earth for me. Poetry was not only accessible but attainable through Alexie.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Often stylistically clever, sometimes repetitious. There are five sections, and I particularly liked the section entitled: "The Native American Broadcasting System" and within that I liked "Split Decisions" about Muhammad Ali.

[Darlene Jilks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great book of Sherman's short stories-love this author!!!

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Structurally the poems/stories in this collection are quite innovative and sophisticated. Now he's using form to sharpen the focus of his message. He carries forward the emotion from Fancydancing, but now the repeated images and settings and characters are working as his private symbolism. Many of the pieces have the appearance of prose poems, but function more like stories. It's like he's not quite reading to make the break from poetry to prose.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you think you don't like poetry, read this book. It changed my life.

[Jimmy L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much like Sherman Alexie's other book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven give us a dark, sobering reality of life on the reservation. Made up of a compilation of short stories, the book does a stellar job at conveying the author's feeling towards and reservation, giving us firsthand experience of what life is like there through fiction. Sherman Alexie compliments his content with a unique writing style, and his use of special literary devices (like starting a paragraph with the same words he used to end the previous one) made the book a thought-provoking read.
Although, it is expected that you have a general knowledge of Native Americans to be able to get the most out of the book, which I sometimes lacked.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hate reviewing Sherman Alexie's books because they're just too good for me. There's so much in them that I can't fully understand because I'm just not worthy of understanding. But he gives me a damn good idea of how it might be and how it might feel.

During our first aid class, all the Indians told our white instructor that the CPR dummy named Annie wasn't real enough for a reservation. So we got out the crayons and gave her warpaint. "Well, if she's a warrior, what happened to her?" asked the instructor. "She had a heart attack," I said, "trying to save the rest of us."

If I'm going to be honest, this was more of a 3.5 for me, but I can't bear to give Alexie anything less than 4 Stars.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

First Indian on the Moon" starts off really heavy, with alcoholism, racism, limited opportunity, family tragedies, and broken relationships with just the faintest cracks of bitter humor between lumps of heartbreak. Just when I was about to say "why am I doing this to myself" and give up, it turns to an amused surrealism that was a saving catch for the entire endeavor, finally ending on a note of, if not triumph, rediscovered resolve and solidarity.

Overall, a long road to wind up at a fine place.

[Andy Caffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of poems, dreams, and imagined fragments of young modern day Native Americans who live on the Spokane Indian Reservation. As such, it lacks very much coherence, but I think that is the author's point. He is conveying his own fragmentation/incoherence and that of his friends and neighbors, searching for identity amidst HUD housing and commodity cheese, elephant bones hiding as broken beer bottles, and his heroes Muhammad Ali and Billy Jack.

It's a very sad reality.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alexie’s poetry book is heartbreaking and desolate. Lyrical, simple yet complex; it is powerful and depressing. There is a major focus relative to alcoholism and its ability to devastate and destroy everything it touches in this book. Memory is a selection of images and this book of prose tells of a sad past.

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always hard hitting and relentlessly sad, life as described in poetry by Sherman Alexie, is worth while reading. Special for me is Alexie's birth, unbringing and influence in Spokane, WA where we have lived since 1999. We have had the good fortune of meeting the author several times in Seattle and he is as interesting in person as in his writing.

[A. · Rating 1 out of 5]

This man, Sherman Alexie, sexually abuses women serially and I will never support his work.

Read the comments section: http://www.slj.com/2018/01/industry-n...

[Kya Butterfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful narrative of pain and love; broken glass and half-full bellies; unbearable heat and open refrigerators; Cadillac's and shining braids. All should be exposed to this, read this, laugh with this, and most certainly cry to this.

[Wyatt Fields · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of those books that makes you want to be a poet. cried multiple times.

my favs:
- Genetics
- House(fires)
- All of Tiny Treaties (especially the love songs)
- Because I was in NYC Once & Have Since Become an Expert
- Split Decisions
- First Indian on the Moon (of course, so beautiful)

[Irisis OM Wolfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

how can I put this? dismal...but magic.

[Nikki Morse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t love this collection. It pains me to say this about a Sherman Alexie book. I can’t give it lower than a 3 because it’s on the coattails of everything else he’s ever written.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing poetry. Would recommend to anyone. Alexie writes in a "traditional" poetry form as well as prose narration. All of the stories he tells are beautifully descriptive.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

i liked the themes of the poems and the storytelling aspect of them but less into the structure and flow.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rhetorical questions:

How does a man find forgiveness for his upbringing?

Is it okay to love without forgiveness?

Is any atonement enough?

[Rory Abel · Rating 5 out of 5]

“mixed-up and mixed-blood
i sometimes hate
the white in me
when i see their cruelty
and sometimes i hate
the indian in me
when i see their weakness”

[Emily Madison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sherman Alexie is horrible but this is an amazing poetry book. The last poem is so sweet! And Apologies is one of the best poems I've read in a long time.

[Erin Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book consists of a mix of 42 poems, short stories, and what seem like journal entries printed across 98 pages. This is after subtracting various title and blank pages.

It is difficult for me to decide between "did not like it" (one star) and "it was ok" (two stars). I know for certain that it doesn't rise up to "liked it" (three stars). I might lean more toward two stars because some of the pieces I liked, I really liked, such as "Billy Jack" on pg 113 and "Song" on pg 107 (the latter half especially). I suppose I felt drawn to the former because I could relate to its portrayal of being treated differently, despite my being white. I've always been an odd, awkward, animistic white guy who doesn't fit in anywhere and who can't be boxed into any stereotype--even the various "white" stereotypes. "Song" spoke to me because it was one of the few pieces I've read from Alexie that didn't seem to wallow in anger and bitterness, emitting a sense of empathy and hope.

The majority of pieces in this book left me a little flat. For the most part, I don't mind predictable, but having already read Black Widows and One Stick Song, I found myself being able to guess the gist of a lot of content after reading the title. Though I don't personally subscribe to the whole surrealist, "shock and awe" approach to poetry, I think I would have liked to be surprised a little more. For instance, in "Blankets," I saw the "giveaway," "tattered," and "smallpox" references coming from a mile away. Also, the form and approach has become entirely predictable for me. Though this is an earlier book than either of the other two I've read, the interchange between free verse lines, prose vignette and prose paragraphs is a theme that continues throughout all three books. As someone who has been reading poetry from all schools and eras for over 30 years, I find it disheartening when a collection of poetry begins to feel repetitive in terms of its content, style and execution. I want to be surprised with a strong Shakespearean sonnet that delivers a powerful closing, some ballad verse that tells a vivid story, some tight, well executed structure amid the free verse and prose vignette.

As with Black Widows and One Stick Song, what I find I can enjoy the most from reading this book is gaining insight into the heart and mind of a Native American man, or I guess he'd prefer to be called Indian. I prefer to call people what they prefer to be called, so I'm happy to go with Indian. I think what surprises me most is how worldly, down to earth, and dysfunctional Indian culture is made to seem to my mind as I read. If this book were sold as memoirs instead of poetry, I'd probably give it 4 stars. But I found his books as I hunted for poetry to read, so I find myself organizing my thoughts here around this book as a book of "poetry," so I feel I must review it as a book of poetry. This leaves me at no more than two stars.

Another detractor for me are the use of cuss words in several of the pieces. I'm not a prude, but I feel that use of "Fuck you" and the like somehow takes away from the strength of the words, imagery, and presentation. Again, if this were sold as memoirs or even as a published personal journal, I'd feel differently--even positively--about the cussing.

In One Stick Song, Alexie wrote, "Poetry = Anger x Imagination." I actually don't agree with this. To my mind, "Esoteric Rants = Anger x Imagination." For me, poetry is the product of empathy, understanding, openness, creativity and in the end a sense of hope. Anger kills the poem, turns it into a tirade, a barrage of arrows shot at anything that moves. I will return to Alexie again at some point, especially if he really tackles and puts his Indian heart into a few formal structures. I think I would really enjoy seeing that unfold.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

UPDATE: I have zero attachment to this author's work, given his unforgivable behavior towards women (which he acknowledged and which was made public after I had read this book). Original rating and review remain, but I would not recommend this book or author to anyone.

Original Jan. 2018 Review:

This was a work of very poetic poetry. Of course, that sounds absolutely absurd, but it is what I felt about reading an early work of Sherman Alexie. I have a strong emotional attachment to his works, and particularly his novels, but in this case, it felt rather removed. There were passages that really spoke to me and lines that were unbelievably clever. It was clearly a book written to express sentiment, almost like flamenco music expresses the emotions of gypsy communities in Andalusia. The style of writing, sometimes in verse, sometimes using the last line as the next paragraph's first line, it was all very unique and gave a certain underlying rhythm to the whole story.

I really appreciated reading this work and it was short, to the point, and yet I wanted to read it more and more, on and on, now knowing what I do about Sherman Alexie and his family from his memoir. It was a good book, though not my favorite of his.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alexie carries so much anger and pain, his own, his family's, and that of all Indians, that it is best to read his pieces a few at a time if you have the patience to wait. They bear many rereadings and much pondering.

He writes about long black Indian hair, his unresolved feelings for white women, alcohol and alcoholism, fires and who and what he lost in them, his childhood and the scars it left, the history of Indians since Columbus, and smartass stuff he and other Indians have to say about things as a way of getting relief from the hell of the reservation (and, also, the only place they can feel happiness) and the hell of their own psyches.

Some pieces like "Collect Calls," "How to Obtain Eagle Feathers for Religious Use," and "Reservation Mathematics" are wonderful and make me overlook some of the self-indulgent stuff and the lifting of a Stephen Crane line almost word for word in a rather silly way in the middle of "House(fires)." This book was earlier stuff, and he was getting the issues out there, issues he still brings to his work today.

[R. C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know how when something hurts for a while it kind of starts to feel good? This book is like that. I started out feeling annoyed and/or bored by the repetition and, well, the depressing content, but by page twenty-two, I had gotten into Alexie's blues groove and was really enjoying the buzzy pain high.

The content may have all been more or less the same, but the structure and style was merrily diverse.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sherman Alexie is one of the most prolific Native American authors I have come across. His writing is simple but lyrical. Mistreatment in reservation life is dominant in this book of poems and short stories and his personal experiences (including alcoholism) make appearances in the work.

My favorite poems are "Influences" and "Tiny Treaties."

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Sherman Alexie's earlier works, powerful and complex. He's a great writer and portrayer of the lives and experiences of Native American people, showing readers from other subcultures how we're all alike in some ways but very different in others. My wife and I had the chance to hear him speak once and he was as good a speaker as he is a writer. I can't recommend his work highly enough.