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The Summer of Black Widows
Poetry. Native American Studies. THE SUMMER OF BLACK WIDOWS presents poetry that has continued to grow in power, complexity, and vision. According to reviewer James R. Kincaid, "Mr. Alexie's is one of the major lyric voices of our time", and the many honors and an international following of readers from his poems, stories, and novels proves the claim. Chris Faatz from The Nation agrees, calling Alexie "a young writer who is taking the literary world by storm...a superb chronicler of the Native American experience...he is a master of language, writing beautifully, unsparingly and straight to the heart."
140 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
8 people are currently reading
723 people want to read
About the author
Sherman Alexie
136 books6,651 followersSherman 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In 2018, Alexie faced multiple allegations of sexual harassment, which led to widespread fallout, including rescinded honors and changes in how his work is promoted in educational and literary institutions.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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
March 6, 2016
I love Alexie. Two of my favorite poems are in this collection: Capital Punishment and How to write the Great American Indian Novel, both of which I first read in an anthology years ago. Alexia's voice is clear, sarcastic and at times, satisfyingly condescending.
September 23, 2013
I'm not always a big fan of poetry - much of it is too esoteric and "high-falutin'" for my tastes -- but I'm a big fan of Alexie's fiction. I really enjoyed this book of poems. It's written in "everyday" language, thus avoiding the making-it-hard-to-follow problem. Alexie writes about subjects that we can all relate to (love, fear, Bigfoot), but comes from his own unique perspective. The poems are organized into sections, each with a particular theme. But it's possible to read a little bit at a time, here & there, and still enjoy them.
January 3, 2018
I first encountered Sherman Alexie with his "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" (did I get that title right?) - which has to be one of the better titles ever. But, it was his "The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian" that knocked my socks off. So, I've been collecting signed first editions of his work for a long time. This one, an early book of his poetry, is not my favorite, but it has some haunting moments. READ ALEXIE. You'll be glad you did.
January 25, 2015
Sherman Alexie, if you ever read this, thank you for writing love songs for your wife. Thank you for finding the other side of anger. Thank you for sharing your troubles and ideas with grace and humor.
July 30, 2022
The poems here are varied and powerful, with the ones carrying the most impact (for me) being the ones that either marry the sacred and the profane/contemporary, or else bring Alexie's personal history to bear on the world around him. The sequences in the first half of the book are especially striking, moving from image to image with a sort of tragic momentum that can't be ignored. For me, many of the last poems in the collection felt less successful and inspired than the poems that came in the first two thirds of the collection, but if so, that's only because the incredibly high standards that early poems in the collection set.
On the whole, I'd recommend this collection, and there are certainly poems here which I'll revisit in the future.
On the whole, I'd recommend this collection, and there are certainly poems here which I'll revisit in the future.
January 18, 2025
The condensed story telling is bomb. To boil a whole feeling, a whole experience, a whole cultural fatigue, down to like…20 lines. Wow.
I’m from the PNW and I’m pissed that Sherman Alexie’s writings were not taught in my high school, community college or college.
Like wtf. Can we stop reading Canterbury Tales and instead read about how the elders know that spiders carry stories in their stomachs. ? Or how Indian kids wave hello to the big trucks bringing death to them and their families from uranium mining.
“They gave us a 562-page bible that explains why we cannot stop them.”
Fuuuuuuck me.
I’m not going to pretend I can analyze Alexie’s work. I just know it’s awesome and everyone should read it. I’m going to read lots more now.
I’m from the PNW and I’m pissed that Sherman Alexie’s writings were not taught in my high school, community college or college.
Like wtf. Can we stop reading Canterbury Tales and instead read about how the elders know that spiders carry stories in their stomachs. ? Or how Indian kids wave hello to the big trucks bringing death to them and their families from uranium mining.
“They gave us a 562-page bible that explains why we cannot stop them.”
Fuuuuuuck me.
I’m not going to pretend I can analyze Alexie’s work. I just know it’s awesome and everyone should read it. I’m going to read lots more now.
February 6, 2023
I chose this book to fulfill a prompt for Book Riot's Read Harder challenge: poetry by BIPOC or queer author. I've only read Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and didn't know he also writes poetry. My favorite poems from this solid collection are "What We Notice, What We Miss," followed closely by others in the Tourists section: "Airplane" and "Tourists."
February 12, 2018
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...
Read the comments section: http://www.slj.com/2018/01/industry-n...
November 28, 2017
Older style. Sometimes disjointed. But beautiful either way.
August 6, 2019
“somebody will take care of this place
even if it’s just in memory.”
even if it’s just in memory.”
April 23, 2016
There were poems I liked and which really caused a few moments of reflection, such as "Grand Entry" on pg 66, part 3 of "Tourists" pg 92 and "The Place where Ghosts of Salmon Jump" on pg 19.
Sharp detractors involved poems such as the "Totem Sonets," which were basically 14 lines of names of things and people. To call these lists "poems" is something of a stretch. There was another poem titled as a sonnet which consisted of 14 interconnected prose paragraphs. Another stretch. As what some would call a "neoformalist," you can imagine my reaction.
Other poems, such as "The Sasquatch Poems" and "Father and Farther" had points of real interest--a gem of thought, image or metaphor--but these were interspersed amidst a scattering of dirt and straw. Perhaps the point was to be abstract, but for me these read more like (fairly literate) journal entries than they did like live, engaging poems. This isn't to say that a book of poems should be cohesive, consistent and contiguous--A book of poems is expected to be a collection of random thoughts, stories and ideas. But I think, in general, I would have liked more cohesiveness within the boundaries of a given poem. Some poems held this sense of cohesiveness for me, but most of them didn't.
What was probably the most engaging element of this book for me is the fact that this scattering of thoughts offered a view into the life and emotions of modern Native American culture--an area of interest for me, though only being possibly 1/64th Creek Indian myself, whatever that means. Putting aside the question of poetry itself, and whether or not one might call it "good" poetry, I found that some lines, often buried deep in a page of line-spaghetti, resonated with me, especially those thoughts and feelings that connected with the archetypal "father," for I myself am the son of an abusive, disconnected father.
Overall, this was an okay read for me (the tooltip text that pops up under two stars reads "it was ok"), which is probably better than I would rate most books of contemporary poetry. I would rate it between two and three stars, a little better than "ok," but not quite "liked it," but I am only permitted one or the other.
Sharp detractors involved poems such as the "Totem Sonets," which were basically 14 lines of names of things and people. To call these lists "poems" is something of a stretch. There was another poem titled as a sonnet which consisted of 14 interconnected prose paragraphs. Another stretch. As what some would call a "neoformalist," you can imagine my reaction.
Other poems, such as "The Sasquatch Poems" and "Father and Farther" had points of real interest--a gem of thought, image or metaphor--but these were interspersed amidst a scattering of dirt and straw. Perhaps the point was to be abstract, but for me these read more like (fairly literate) journal entries than they did like live, engaging poems. This isn't to say that a book of poems should be cohesive, consistent and contiguous--A book of poems is expected to be a collection of random thoughts, stories and ideas. But I think, in general, I would have liked more cohesiveness within the boundaries of a given poem. Some poems held this sense of cohesiveness for me, but most of them didn't.
What was probably the most engaging element of this book for me is the fact that this scattering of thoughts offered a view into the life and emotions of modern Native American culture--an area of interest for me, though only being possibly 1/64th Creek Indian myself, whatever that means. Putting aside the question of poetry itself, and whether or not one might call it "good" poetry, I found that some lines, often buried deep in a page of line-spaghetti, resonated with me, especially those thoughts and feelings that connected with the archetypal "father," for I myself am the son of an abusive, disconnected father.
Overall, this was an okay read for me (the tooltip text that pops up under two stars reads "it was ok"), which is probably better than I would rate most books of contemporary poetry. I would rate it between two and three stars, a little better than "ok," but not quite "liked it," but I am only permitted one or the other.
December 29, 2010
These poems are a pleasure to read. Plus, there's a lot of them. It bothers me when poets put out a collection of 60 pages of poetry for $16. Alexie has 139 pages here. He continues to use "Indian" images of salmon, rivers, (fancy) dancing, as well as images from his past like basketball. The loss of his sister and brother-in-law surfaces again (And why shouldn't it? I would never get over that either!). Although most of the poems here are free verse, there's an occasional form like the villanelle. Alexie also works in some killer rhymes (regular and near) throughout some of his poems. He sometimes relies on repetition, but that doesn't bother me too much. The repetition is sort of like the pounding of a trival drum. (I bet Alexie would hate that I made that comparison. Ha!)
My favorite poems:
That Place Where Ghosts of Salmon Jump
Totem Sonnets
Elegies
Sister Fire, Brother Smoke
The Lover of Maps
Drum as Love, Fear, and Prayer
Last Will and Testament
Capital Punishment
The Sasquatch Poems
Inside Dachau
My favorite poems:
That Place Where Ghosts of Salmon Jump
Totem Sonnets
Elegies
Sister Fire, Brother Smoke
The Lover of Maps
Drum as Love, Fear, and Prayer
Last Will and Testament
Capital Punishment
The Sasquatch Poems
Inside Dachau
Read
December 13, 2023I've to eat with more sense than taste
Did white man come here even before the eagle?
Did sasquatch also cross the Bering Strait?
Literature is the imagined alternative..
Did white man come here even before the eagle?
Did sasquatch also cross the Bering Strait?
Literature is the imagined alternative..
July 29, 2008
I've been hearing a lot about Sherman Alexie lately, so I had to try him out. I haven't read such engaging poetry for a long time, and I enjoyed the balance of simple and complicated. He had both pleasing imagery and thought-provoking stories to tell. Because I heard he writes children and young adult books, some of the topics surprised me. I can't wait to read more by Alexie, and plan to read and then watch The Business of Fancydancing in the next few weeks.
January 23, 2012
This was the featured book on my favorite nationally-broadcast poetry show 1/22/12, and I am happy it was. Sherman Alexie tells us about so much, and does it so well, with poetic structures and references that are both familiar and refreshing. Magic is never far away, but no nearer than the day-to-day pain of poverty, diabetes, alcoholism and PTSD. We see the light, smell the fire, feel the blood the characters encounter in these poems, are invited to share myth and mystery, and to see Walt Whitman shoot baskets with a bunch of muscular young men on the res.
April 25, 2008
What a marvel of a book! My favorite poems were "Totem Sonnets" and "Sonnet: Tattoo Tears" (which is among the greatest sonnets I've read). I wish our poetry group would address these two poems.
I look forward to reading more of his poetry. Alexie's short story, "What You Pawn, I Will Redeem," is also a marvel.
(I don't know if I'd go so far as the prior reviewer to say that I'd have his children, but I'd definitely baby-sit, free of charge).
I look forward to reading more of his poetry. Alexie's short story, "What You Pawn, I Will Redeem," is also a marvel.
(I don't know if I'd go so far as the prior reviewer to say that I'd have his children, but I'd definitely baby-sit, free of charge).
October 29, 2009
Amazing. Seriously. I'm not a huge poetry fan. I really don't enjoy sitting and reading it at all, but this was just incredible. It is almost worth reading the terrible books by Momaday and Vizenor in Native American Literature to stumble on this one. I'm considering which poems I might be able to use in my classroom. Alexie is the kind of poet who makes every other poet want to just give up.
March 18, 2008
It's a fact that I would have Sherman Alexie's babies if he were interested. This book of incandescent, surreal, and painfully honest poetry just makes me ready to procreate even more. The man is a genius.
February 26, 2024
I have to say I prefer Alexie’s prose. There are some gems in here, but not enough for me to give it a glowing review. What I found to be the best of these poems were pretty good. Still others were incomprehensible.
That, however, is something I could write about most modern poetry.
That, however, is something I could write about most modern poetry.
August 15, 2007
Fantastic poems. Really lovely and haunting.
December 9, 2007
The first book of Sherman's poetry that I read. Its brilliant, funny, sad, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
September 13, 2008
"Sherman, I'm sorry your sister was killed by a metaphor."
"Fire as Verb and Noun" said things I don't think anyone else has ever thought of before, but everyone can relate to.
"Fire as Verb and Noun" said things I don't think anyone else has ever thought of before, but everyone can relate to.
July 22, 2009
This a superb collection of poetry.
January 6, 2011
Loved these poems.
June 6, 2011
Mail box treat!
March 16, 2012
BY SHERMAN ALEXIE!!! Alexie's voice is full of truth. Here is a man who knows about America and its elusive dreams.
January 3, 2013
I always enjoy Sherman Alexie's work. Some of these poems are better than others and some are not - which is the way of poems. Alexie makes me think though - and I like that.
August 29, 2014
As always, Alexie's poetry is simply stunning.
January 4, 2015
Only read part of it due to time commitments.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews