Yep, my daddy was an undependable drunk. But he'd never missed any of my organized games, concerts, plays, or picnics. He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could. (189)

The poetry, if you will, of life is reduced to this sort of dry, scientific, you know, it's the worst sort of précis of who we are.

Those Montana Indians were so tough that white people were scared of them. Can you imagine a place where white people are scared of Indians and not the other way around? That's Montana.

I felt so conflicted about having fled the rez as a kid that I created a whole literary career that left me there.

In a real-world way, my gifts are very limited in terms of what I can do.

What inspires a poem for me is usually a moment.

I think a lot of Indians want Indian artists to be cultural cheerleaders rather than cultural investigators.