Calling upon the personal memories and ancestral antecedents of her Anishinaabe family heritage, Molly McGlennen writes poems for Fried Fish and Flour Biscuits that render the continuance and celebration of the complex realities of Native American life in the 21st century. The collection of finely rendered lyrical and narrative pieces recounts the story of physical and spiritual nourishment, as the poet begins by telling her readers that her poems, like family recipes, are best served aloud, shared as gifts, and regarded as pieces of gratitude to be given away. Telling us how "memories flesh her fully," McGlennen paints an intricate but compassionate picture of growing up "away from the lakes that have always fed her family," and of urban life where she and the neighbor kids shoot hoops in alleyways and "fall asleep in the backs of old cars." Operating as a sort of give-away, McGlennen's collection weaves childhood memories, family histories, and present-day memorials as a means to forge paths of continuance of Indigenous culture. Narratives range from the connective trails of blueberry picking and walleye fishing, to the tragic freeways of protesting an execution at San Quentin, to the regenerative passageways of falling in love and giving birth. Finally, through the gesture of feeding "those networks of connection," each poem invigorates the life-ways inherent in sustaining cultural relationships even when one finds herself a great distance from her home.

Diane Glancy is one of the outstanding Native American authors of modern times. Working in multiple genres - poetry, novel, theatre and nonfiction - she has created a vast, ceaselessly provocative oeuvre (more than 35 volumes) and an instantly recognizable voice. Her subject matter is astonishingly diverse, encompassing everything from the Cherokee Trail of Tears to the New Testament character of Dorcas, from the lives of small-town Midwestern women to the joys of classic automobiles, from grade school maskmaking to the recuperation of personal heritage in the archives.The essays in this groundbreaking volume represent the first attempt to systematically survey this challenging writer. Ten outstanding scholars approach her work, mapping out controversies and providing readers of Glancy with various contexts and comparisons through which to understand her ideas. These chapters take a variety of ideological and methodological positions (feminist, Christian, postcolonial, literary-nationalist and more), the better to draw out the complexities of a writer whose work never lets the reader come to easy conclusions. Also included are an original interview with Glancy herself, a survey of previous criticism and a bibliography of her writings. This volume will therefore serve equally well as an introduction to Glancy for newcomers and as an in-depth survey for people already familiar with her work.The Salt Companion to Diane Glancy is part of a unique series of companion volumes to Native American poets. Previous subjects include Carter Revard and Jim Barnes.