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HORSE TRACKS

HORSE TRACKS

$18.00Price

ISBN: 978-0-9844510-5-0

Pub Date: Oct. 2010

Pages: 120


By Henry Real Bird


The inner heart commotion of Henry Real Bird is poised in a physical and metaphysical terrain marked by the history, culture, language and identity of his Apsaalooke nation. At the same time, no one else contemplates broncs, Chinook winds, the Wolf Teeth Mountains and forgotten creek beds in the way that Real Bird does—his is a careful, astute eye that reminds us again and again of our own interrelation, of our responsibility to all beings, all places that make up our world and beyond.

—M. L. Smoker, author of Another Attempt At Rescue


Henry Real Bird's poems are of the moment and thus timeless. We look to Henry for a check of the pulse of things coded in words that work to decipher what he often calls "feelings." But are they more like soundings of the heart and of the earth? And then again are they poems, songs, or prayers? All I know is I'm glad they are preserved.

—Hal Cannon, Founding Director, Western Folklife Center

    Henry Real Bird breaks a lot of the rules my formal education taught me about writing poetry, but half of Henry's education comes from somewhere else. When Crow is your primary language and your poetry is Crow spoken in English, the rules most likely get written as you go.

    —Greg Keeler


    Henry Real Bird is a rancher and educator who raises bucking horses on Yellow Leggins Creek in the Wolf Teeth Mountains. He was born and raised on the Crow Indian Reservation in the tradition of the Crow by his grandparents, Mark and Florence Real Bird. Educated in Montana at Crow Agency, Hardin, Bozeman and Billings, he has a Master’s Degree in general education. Henry has punched cows, worked in rodeos, and taught school from Kindergarten to college level. He began writing poetry in 1969 after an extended stay in the hospital. He still speaks Crow as his primary language and feels this has helped in writing his poetry. Henry Real Bird is the current Poet Laureate of Montana; an article about his unique way of promoting poetry recently aired on NPR’s All Things Considered.

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