Love at Gunpoint

by nila northSun

nila northSun's LOVE AT GUNPOINT is written with emotional honesty and biting elegance, embracing her tribal identity and confronting the challenges of being a contemporary American woman. Her poems are a confession of the extremes of her life: the highs of a first kiss, the lows of coming home to an empty house. "nila northSun's new poems are funny and brutal. In short, direct lines, she tells the story of a life filled with pain, shame, agony, and glorious little moments of joy. She is one of my favorite poets"-Sherman Alexie. Her book A SNAKE IN THE MOUTH is also available from SPD.

Genres: Poetry, Native American

71 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of poems that is stylistically reminiscent of e.e.cummings and in perhaps my biggest call for 2020 nila northSun is in every way his equal.
A great American poet.

[Josh Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A criminally underread and underappreciated poet. Accessible and wise, so contemporary they're shocking — read nila northSun's poems.

[R.d. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just read LOVE AT GUNPOINT by Nila Northsun and it's a corker. She's got a good, solid voice and can write about hell-raisin' or child-raisin' with equal fervor. She writes about life on and off the Rez, sometimes poignant, sometimes with a biting satire, but always with just the right amount of wry humor. I recommend her book. You can order it through your local bookstore and at $12 it's a steal. Here's one of my favorite poems:

cowboy fire

on nights like tonight
when i'm burning brush piles in the backyard
& the barbed wire fence and fence post
reflect the warm glow of fire
i fantasize
that a cowboy would approach
from the darkness
from the moonless night
from the crisp starlit night
that a cowboy walking his horse
would crunch the underbrush
& make me scared
until
i saw his familiar face
bright in the flaming light

& it would be you
that would be enough
just to see you again.

[Danielle Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not knowing about the author's experiences, I went into this book to further my research in Native American Lit. Many of her poems on domestic violence and alcohol abuse just hit me square in the gut. a beautiful honesty written with simplistic beauty. Nila NorthSun has a new devoted fan!

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love people who have the guts to be honest in poetry.