Winner of the 2013 FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize. David Pichaske writes in the Foreword to this collection: "Thirty-five years is a long time in anyone's career-long enough to see how things turned out. Long enough to allow us to draw some conclusions. Long enough to trace the arc of a career...." Joan Colby: Selected Poems represents a body of work "underwritten by an intelligence itself as fiery as it is sharp" (Philip Dacey), "both loud and haunting, both vivid and quiet as a falling stone" (Christina Zawadiwsky). Includes selections from Blue Woman Dancing in the Nerve (1979), Chagall Poems (1980), Dream Tree (1980), The Boundary Waters (1982), How the Sky Begins to Fall (1982), The Atrocity Book (1986), The Lonely Hearts Killers (1986), and Dead Horses (2012).

By the end of the twentieth century, Adrian C. Louis had become one of the most powerful voices in the canon of Native American literature. His poetry and fiction have been widely read, anthologized, and translated. Skins, first published in 1995, is now introduced with a new foreword by David Pichaske, professor of English at Southwest Minnesota State University, and Louis's personal friend and colleague. It's the early 1990s and Rudy Yellow Shirt and his brother, Mogie, are living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, home of the legendary Oglala Sioux warrior Crazy Horse. Both Vietnam veterans, the men struggle with daily life on "the rez." Rudy, a criminal investigator with the Pine Ridge Public Safety Department, frequently arrests his neighbors and friends, including his brother, who has become a rez wino. But when Rudy falls and hits his head on a rock while pursuing a suspected murderer, Iktome the trickster enters his brain.Iktome restores Rudy's youthful sexual vigor-long-lost to years of taking high blood pressure pills-and ignites his desire for political revenge via an alter ego, the "Avenging Warrior." In a violent act, the Avenging Warrior torches the local liquor store, nearly burning Mogie alive while he is hiding on the store's roof, plotting to steal booze. Although the brothers reconcile before Mogie dies, he gives the Avenging Warrior one final mission: go to Mount Rushmore and blow the nose off George Washington's granite face. In 2002, Skins made into a movie directed by Chris Eyre.

This is a remarkably fresh piece of Dylan scholarship, focusing on the profound impact that his Midwestern roots have had on his songs, politics, and prophetic character. In the 1966 "Playboy" interview, Dylan said, 'I'm North Dakota-Minnesota-Midwestern...I speak that way. I'm from someplace called Iron Range. My brains and feelings have come from there'.

This is a remarkably fresh piece of Dylan scholarship, focusing on the profound impact that his Midwestern roots have had on his songs, politics, and prophetic character. In the 1966 "Playboy" interview, Dylan said, 'I'm North Dakota-Minnesota-Midwestern...I speak that way. I'm from someplace called Iron Range. My brains and feelings have come from there'.