“Bad Breath,” by Gerald Vizenor, from the anthology An Illuminated History of the Future, edited by Curtis White and published by FC2 in 1989. Read by Mia Ellis. In the second part of the program, Gerald is joined by poet and activist Kimberly Blaeser.
Gerald Vizenor is the author of over forty books of fiction, poetry, and criticism. He has received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas, the New York Fiction Collective Prize, two American Book Awards, and numerous other awards and prizes. An enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation, his teaching career includes professorships at Lake Forest College, Bemidji State University, University of Minnesota, University of Oklahoma, University of California, Berkeley, and University of California, Santa Cruz.
Kimberly Blaeser, former Wisconsin Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections including Copper Yearning, Apprenticed to Justice, and Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance. A UW–Milwaukee professor and MFA faculty for Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, Blaeser is founding director of In-Na-Po—Indigenous Nations Poets.
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